


Soft Flames

by Moonrose001



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Haunting, IDK spooky stuff, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Possession, Sara and Shane are together in the first few chapters, Test Friend Squad, Which will be explained in an author note
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-19 01:32:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 47,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13694097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose001/pseuds/Moonrose001
Summary: When Ryan starts claiming that he's haunted, Shane does the only responsible thing to do and ignores him. Odd things are happening though, and when Ryan becomes a potential vessel, Shane, with the help of his co-workers, has to free his friend and he might just learn more about his family history than he was ever prepared for.





	1. Chapter 1

“I think I’m haunted.”

Shane doesn’t even look up from his phone. “Is that so,” he drawls.

He’s waiting for Ryan to continue, but to his surprise nothing comes. Figuring that Ryan is actually serious, Shane sighs and puts down his phone.

He expected Ryan to look serious, but instead he looks absolutely crestfallen. The rings underneath his eyes have become worse, his lips are chapped and his eyes have gotten that glassy red quality it gets when he hasn’t been sleeping properly for a while.

“Why do you think that?” Shane asks, trying not to sound patronizing, but also not indulging in Ryan’s fantasies.

Ryan’s shoulders slump, and he looks down, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It’s stupid,” he says, literally shutting down right in front of Shane, which is a far cry from the elevated discussion Shane expected from him.

Shane gives him a considering look as Ryan grabs his phone to make himself look occupied. It is true that Ryan hasn’t been looking great lately. In fact, Shane hasn’t seen him look this bad since the whole sleeping experiment. Honestly, Shane had just thought it had been because of Ryan and Helen’s recent breakup. Because of Helen’s job as an audit senior, she had early hours, which usually meant that Ryan went early to bed with her. But ever since Helen moved to New York, and her and Ryan agreed to just be friends, nothing has been stopping Ryan from slowly replacing his meals with popcorn, play FIFA far into the night and growing a beard.

But the way that Ryan’s hands shake, and how often he’s been zoning out lately is a little extensive.

“Uh, how about this,” Shane starts. Ryan throws him a look. “I’ll book a room in 30 minutes, and I’ll finish editing that Q & A.”

“No,” Ryan says.

“Why not?” Shane asks. “It’s just for an hour, and my next deadline isn’t until Friday.”

Ryan looks suspiciously at him.

“Look, if a ghost is preventing you from sleeping,” Shane says, doing the very thing he set out not to do, “it only makes sense to sleep somewhere else when you can, right?”

“Okay,” Ryan agrees. “But don’t edit it so you get all the oneliners.”

“No need to, my comebacks are superior,” Shane jokes, but Ryan doesn’t offer anything back.

When Ryan has gone away to sleep, Shane does the only responsible thing: he looks through Ryan’s browser history.

It seems like Ryan has been googling “shadow ghost” a lot, even read something on Creepypasta about it, which was just completely underneath their standards really, but Shane knows Ryan well enough to exclude clearly fabricated stories.

Shane edits the video, and tells the interns that comes for Ryan’s help that he’s helping with another video. It’s a little mean, especially because some of the interns look truly desperate, but then again if they didn’t get used to the feeling of impending doom soon, they’re no good for Buzzfeed anyway.

When Ryan comes back an hour later he looks slightly renewed, and Shane thinks no more of it.

\-----

“So,” Shane says, frowning at the ceiling, trying to appear very casual, “have you noticed anything different about Ryan?”

Sara blinks sluggishly at him. “Is this your idea of pillow talk?”

He chuckles, and she smiles back at him.

“Yeah, he has been a little out of it,” she indulges. “Especially after the whole nightmare thing.”

“Oh yeah,” Shane says, briefly remembering the night where Shane had woken up because Ryan had been screaming bloody murder at the window, convinced that there had been a ghost in their room. Sara is calling it a nightmare, but really it had happened while Ryan had been wide awake. Shane just didn’t really want people to know that, since it made his buddy seem a little crazy. Ryan doesn’t really remember the affair himself, and it had probably been lucid dreaming anyway, so Shane had gotten away with his white lie.

“It started happening before that, though,” Sara says, her eyes thoughtful. The three of them hung out a lot together with some other colleagues, and so because Sara was unfortunately a boogara, Ryan and Sara quickly started liking each other a lot. Shane had a growing suspicion that Sara was one of the few people Ryan could actually confide in, and because Shane also confided in her a lot, it made Sara a very dangerous person.

“Really?” Shane asks, trying to remember back.

“Yeah,” Sara says, voice sleepy as she turns around. “He said he wasn’t getting enough sleep.”

“Oh.” Why hadn’t Ryan told Shane that? Oh maybe Shane had been told, but had just dismissed it? It’s likely. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she grumbles back.

\----

The following day, Ryan looks absolute wrecked. Shane pretends to want coffee so he can grab Ryan a cup of coffee too, and Ryan thanks him almost robotically.

At some point, Ryan stops working and just starts staring at the screen blankly. Shane shoots him a quick look, and therefore catches it when Ryan smacks his big forehead into the keyboard.

“Ryan?” Shane asks, and he can’t help but laugh a little.

No answer, not even a groan.

“Shaniacs forever,” Shane continues, a smirk broadening on his lips. That line always works. Ryan would protest even on his death bed.

But that doesn’t get a reaction, and that’s how Shane knows that it’s serious. “Ryan?” he asks, putting a hand on Ryan’s arm and it feels cold, even in the humid office. He shakes him. “Ryan?” he calls out louder and Ned (of course) is the first person to take off his headphones.

“Is everything alright over there?” he calls.

“No, I think Ryan fainted,” Shane exclaims, continuing to shake Ryan and Ned immediately jumps up. The others are taking off their headphones to see what the commotion is about, and it’s not long before someone has googled what to do, and Ryan is quickly put onto a couch. His legs are placed on the armrest, and his jeans are unbuttoned.

“I think his shirt is too tight too,” Steven says, looking at the article he found on his phone.

Eugene (bless him) quickly gets to work and not for the first time Shane thanks the lord that he shares desk space with the Try Guys, considering their quick responses to adapt to weird situations.

“It says he should wake up within a minute, or we should call an ambulance,” Ned adds. “What happened?” The question is directed at Shane.

“I don’t know,” Shane says, a little panicked. “He was being really still and then he just dropped on top of his keyboard. I thought he was joking.”

The quiet is intense as they wait for Ryan to wake up. Nothing happens and Ned calls an ambulance. The commotion becomes even bigger once the ambulance has arrived and Ryan is rolled away, half of the office either tweeting or snapchatting the event.

Shane asks his boss if he can go with, but his boss (kindly) shoots him down, saying that this was what they had emergency contacts for. The emergency contact is now Ryan’s brother, Jake, who is already working as an intern in another hospital.

In the end, his boss’s wish to make Shane stay is in vain, because Shane doesn’t get anything done, even when Jake calls and says that Ryan just fainted from exhaustion and dehydration. By the time the clock hits 4 pm, an uber is already waiting for Shane outside.

\-----

“Hey, little guy,” Shane greets when he sees that Ryan is awake. The old Test Friends crew is back together, being the only ones close to Ryan that had gotten work off early enough to make it before the visiting hours.

Ryan sends him an annoyed stare, and Jake smiles at them.

“Aw, your friends are so sweet,” he remarks, rubbing Ryan’s arm.

Ryan flips them off.

Shane sits at the end of the bed, because the bed is raised far up enough for his legs to not actually bend awkwardly. While Daysha gets another chair, Maycie takes the one chair there is and Jen promptly sits on her lap.

“How are you feeling?” Maycie asks in a kind, slightly hesitant voice.

“I don’t know, better I guess,” Ryan says.

Later that evening, when Jake has gone outside to take a phone call, Ryan looks straight at Shane and says: “Take me home with you.”

Shane snorts. “No, I will get your weird germs on me.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “They’re discharging me, and Jake is gonna cancel a project in Texas to watch me.” Sounded like Jake. He had always seemed silent and caring, where Ryan was always loud and independent. “I really don’t want him to lose this opportunity, so pull your abnormally big head out of your butthole – “

“Again with the butthole – “

“ – and _help me_.”

Just as Shane is about to tell Ryan not to bite the hand that feeds him (of course he’s going to bring Ryan home with him. Despite their banter Shane is worried, and besides, Sara left town this morning so it wouldn’t bother anyone either way), Jake steps back inside.

“So, uh, Jake,” Shane says in his most nonchalant voice. “Is Ryan going to stay the night?”

“Why?” Jake asks, suspiciously narrowing his eyes.

Shane always suspected Jake was the brother with the brains. “Well, you know, I should take him home to my place, where his big ol’ doink of a forehead – “

“Look who’s talking – “

“ – isn’t in danger of any bears.”

Jake crosses his arms. “Alright, you two, I see what’s going on here.”

“What do you mean?” Ryan calmly asks, but the way he mirrors Jake’s body language gives him away. Ryan, unlike Shane, isn’t the best actor.

“I see what the two of you are doing,” Jake says, looking from Shane to Ryan.

“What?” Shane says, going for confused.

“You could just offer to take him like a normal person, you know,” Jake says.

“That’s exactly what he just did!” Ryan argues.

Jake only rolls his eyes. “Just get him home.”

\----

Once while filming a Supernatural season, when Shane had been particularly bothered by the way they fought so much, Sara had randomly started talking about planets. _You know, Jupiter is all about the future,_ she had said. _The only way it manifests badly is when it’s met with unrealistic expectations or an inadaptable set of beliefs that also limits abilities and achievements._

He knew she was into zodiacs, and he wasn’t paid to banter with her, so he usually shut up. In this case, he hadn’t known how that was related to Ryan and their recent argument. _What am I supposed to do with that,_ he had sullenly asked.

 _Ryan is a Sagittarius,_ she had said as if it was obvious. _A fire sign!_

She had said that like it all made sense. He had only lifted his eyebrows at her. She had groaned like she was speaking to the dumbest person ever. _Jupiter is the ruler of Sagittarius, Shane! You’re an earth sign, so your view is grounded and realistic, but Ryan will only see that as being close-minded!_

 _Well, Jupiter is also mostly made of gas,_ Shane had pettily remarked and she had thrown a pillow at him, but the conversation stayed with him, and when she had presented it like that – through stupid zodiacs really – it had made a lot of sense why he tended to infuriate Ryan so much.

“I’m not taking the bed,” Ryan argues.

But it damn well goes both ways.

“Look,” Shane says, “I’ll change the sheets again if you don’t believe me.”

“Hey, who said anything about believing,” Ryan quickly jabs. “I just don’t want you to sleep on the couch. Your ridiculously long body won’t fit and your back will hurt like a bitch.”

“Well, you were just in the hospital,” Shane argues.

“For insomnia,” Ryan argues. “Nothing to do with my back.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “I will feel bad letting a newly released patient – “

“I was there for five hours – “

“ - sleep on my crappy couch.”

They stare stubbornly at each other for a moment.

“We should share then,” Shane proposes. “That’s a nice compromise.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“Not like we haven’t done it before.”

Ryan doesn’t answer right away. “Okay,” he finally agrees. In moments like this, it’s very easy to tell that Ryan is stopping himself from saying ‘no homo’.

Really, it’s another funny coincidence: The Taurus’ planet is Venus, the most BAMF feminist of planets. Sara likes to think that’s why he feels so secure in his softness. He doesn’t particularly feel the need to establish his masculinity, he dismisses the notion that taking leadership is a good thing, he likes that ballet fitness makes him feel graceful and he’s sure that if the spider lady had the option to eat him like the soft piece of pink candy floss he is, she would’ve.

So forgive Shane for rolling his eyes a little bit. “We’ve shared a bed before, don’t make it awkward.”

“I’m not making it awkward, it’s fine,” Ryan answers, while unplugging his computer from the power outlet. He makes way into the bedroom.

Shane sighs and follows him. Ryan is already in sweats and a T-shirt, and 

“I have a Queen,” Shane says as he lifts the duvet. “It’s not like we’ll be spooning.”

At that Ryan sighs and looks at him. “Sorry,” he blurts. “It’s just awkward for me.”

Shane shrugs, remembering the few locations where they’ve spent the night. Both in Sallie’s house and Queen Mary they slept on the floor, close together because they weren’t two guys chilling in a hot tub five feet apart cause they’re not gay, and also the camera could film both of them better. And then the Dauphine Orleans Hotel sleepover had happened, and instead of the floor, they had a bed and even though the principle was the same, it had changed everything. Suddenly Ryan didn’t want to be anywhere near him, had sat on his phone most of the night to avoid even being asleep beside him. The pillow wall had happened, and Shane had … well, really enabled all of the straight bros behavior and fallen asleep on the edge of the bed, on top of the covers.

“We’ve been friends for two years, man,” Shane says, voice quiet. “It shouldn’t be. But I get it, I guess.”

“Okay,” Ryan says and Shane can tell he’s sleeping. “What if we don’t build the pillow wall this time?”

“Deal,” Shane says. “We can even spoon if you want.”

“Can I be the little spoon?” Ryan giggles.

“Sorry, but I’m usually the little spoon,” Shane jokes along. “Want me to turn off the light?”

Ryan doesn’t answer right away.

“I will leave it on,” Shane says, before Ryan feels pressured to let Shane turn it off.

Shane turns towards Ryan, because the light would be right in his face otherwise.

Ryan is staring at the ceiling, and Shane can just see the wheels turning in his little overactive mind, the way his breathing becomes uneven and his body tenses up.

“Are you still haunted?” Shane asks, feeling himself dip into a part of his and Ryan’s relationship they rarely spend time in, but does exist.

“No, the ghost’s contract expired two days ago,” Ryan sarcastically answers. He’s getting agitated for no reason.

Shane kind of wants to ask him if Ryan’s has tried talking to a doctor – outside the ER – but is afraid to set him off.

Ryan’s breathing is quickening.

“I didn’t know it had gotten that bad,” Shane says instead. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Ryan snorts. “Who would believe me?” he asks and finally looks at Shane. “You?”

“Probably not,” Shane admits. “But I could’ve offered you a place to sleep, Ry.”

Ryan looks considerately at him, before turning to look at the ceiling again. “It wouldn’t be any help,” he says. “I don’t think it’s bound to my apartment. I think it’s bound to me.”

Shane considers his reply. “Have you seen it?” he finally asks.

Ryan’s eyes go wide at the ceiling as he slowly shakes his head. “I haven’t.”

“Well, what then? Can you hear it? Is it moving your things?”

Ryan shakes his head. “I can hear it. And not like any of our EVP’s. I can hear it move. All over the ceilings and the walls.”

“Okay…” Shane says, already skeptic.

“I can smell it too,” Ryan continues.

“What does it smell like?”

“Like… rotten stuff.”

“Have you tried cleansing your plumbing?”

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan says, but it’s weak. His voice shakes at the end of the sentence, and he bites his lip as if to suppress more sounds from coming out.

Slowly, with much dread Shane belatedly realizes that this is actually upsetting to Ryan, and Shane is being an asshole, despite really trying not to be. Now that’s not the first or last time, but usually, when Ryan got to leave the locations that left him terrified, all Shane’s snide comments were forgotten.

But this time, Ryan couldn’t leave. He didn’t feel safe anywhere anymore. Shane is starting to realize how Ryan’s ridiculous beliefs are actually messing him up.

“Hey,” Shane says, reaching out and putting his hand on Ryan’s bicep. “You’re safe. Nothing can get to you here.”

Oh God, Ryan’s arm is cold and shaking. Were the nurses stingy on the IV or something?

“Do you want a hug?” Shane offers because he’s a gentlemen.

“Do I want to?” Ryan asks, which might as well have been a yes. Shane rolls over to Ryan’s side of the bed, and pulls Ryan in with his arm.

“God, you’re freezing,” Shane can’t help but comment, and Ryan pinches Shane in the stomach. “Do you want me to get a heating blanket?”

Ryan tenses and pulls back to look at Shane with a frowned brow. “Why do you have a heating blanket? We live in California.”

“You never know,” Shane answers.

“Yes, you do.”

Shane doesn’t want to argue. He just rolls onto his back, and grabs his phone. “You can take the boy out of Illinois but can’t take Illinois out of the boy,” Shane says. “Go ahead and fall asleep, I’m gonna work on the Hot Daga.”

Ryan groans but does roll unto his side, and goes quiet. Shane is actually deadbeat, but he figures Ryan would be able to fall asleep better if Shane stayed awake. And true enough, after only five minutes Ryan falls asleep.

\----

Shane wakes up to the sound of a whimper. He’s lying on top of his covers, having fallen asleep with his phone in his hand. He doesn’t know what woke him up at first, but then Ryan whimpers again and Shane sighs.

“Ryan,” Shane mumbles. “It’s just a nightmare.”

Ryan doesn’t seem to hear him, but he groans louder this time.

“Ryan?” Shane says, a little harsher.

Ryan’s groans turn into short and quick cries, and Shane sits up and puts his hand on Ryan’s arm. It’s cold and –

Shane rubs his eyes, and grabs his glasses from the bedside table. Ryan’s arm is a flowerbed of bruises, violet, blue and red blossoming on his skin like coxcombs.

“Ryan!” Shane calls out a little louder, and Ryan wakes up with a gasp. He’s cold but clammy and Shane will have to change the sheets again. “You alright there, buddy?”

Ryan doesn’t answer, only swallows. He’s stiff as a board of wood, and it’s Shane who turns him so he can get a good look at his mug. “Shane?” Ryan finally croaks, body still unnaturally stiff.

“Yeah,” Shane says. “Welcome back, you were having a nightmare.”

Ryan inhales to answer, when he suddenly stills. His eyes become wide as saucers, and focus on something behind Shane.

A weird scent hits Shane’s nose and he wrinkles it.

“B-behind you,” Ryan whispers.

Shane turns and predictably there’s nothing there, except the sight of the white wall being enlightened with the dim light of the night lamp. “Look, can you move?”

Ryan’s wide eyes are starting to water. “N-no,” he whimpers.

“You’re probably hallucinating because you’re experiencing some sort of sleep paralysis,” Shane patiently explains. “Ugh, it’s actually freezing in here. Try moving your fingers. Look at me. Just focus on me. There’s nothing here. You’re safe. Listen to my voice.”

Eventually Ryan is coaxed out of his frozen state, and slumps into Shane’s side. He’s quivering and Shane is starting to get an unsettled feeling in his stomach about those bruises. Is Ryan… hurting himself? Or perhaps getting so tired he was walking into things? Maybe, he and his co-workers were too rough with him when they positioned him as they were waiting for the ambulance?

Shane kisses his pride goodbye and wraps a long arm around Ryan’s shoulder, pulling him in. Ryan hasn’t talked ever since he escaped his paralysis. He has only been shaking uncontrollably, and Shane tries to remember if Jake said Ryan had dinner at the hospital. If not, it would definitely explain how cold Ryan is.

Ryan is pressing his face into Shane’s collarbone, as if he can’t bear to face reality.

Shane says something reassuring now and then, waiting for Ryan to gradually relax, which he does.

Eventually Ryan falls asleep, and Shane gets up to turn off the air conditioner. When he gets back into bed, he can’t help but notice how exhausted and haunted Ryan still looks. They would have to talk about that tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tumblr???](https://moonrose001.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shane feels himself go cold. “What,” he snickers, “you think that the office conspired to kill him?”

So exactly what does Shane do now?

Talk to Jake? Nah, Jake was focusing so much on his internship that Ryan would surely kill Shane if Shane expected Ryan’s little brother to take care of him.

What about Zack? He does the Unsolved Sports with Ryan, and they had known each other for even longer than Shane and Ryan. But thinking about it he hasn’t seen the two of them hang out a lot outside work.

What about… Brent?

Shane shoots the possibility down as soon as he thinks it. No way. Shane hadn’t liked him ever since he had decided to leave Unsolved, just because he’d gotten a brief assignment at Buzzfeed Australia.

As Shane goes through different possibilities, he slowly realizes that Ryan might not have the inner circle Shane needs to consult with in this case. It’s not that Ryan is alone and doesn’t have any friends. To the contrary, Ryan is on speaking terms with more people in the office than Shane is, or he at least knows of them, and Shane suspects that if he approaches someone Ryan is pals with, they will surely approach Ryan and Shane doesn’t think that Ryan will be very pleased about that.

“I think Ryan is having a psychic break,” Shane says.

Eugene freezes, and looks blankly up at him. “Aaaaand what am I going to do about it?”

“Well,” Shane says, feeling a little silly about approaching Eugene when the guy was having his lunch purposefully isolated in a tree’s shadow. “You know the two of you have a lot in common, so I thought I would ask you.”

Eugene lifts a single eyebrow. “Because we’re both Asian?”

“See Sara told me to get Jen because their Zodiacs have the greatest level of compatibility, but I’d rather ask you because 1) You both hate people touching you 2) don’t have a close circle of friends 3) distract yourselves with extensive drinking 4) only known for your good looks – “

“Alright, I get it,” Eugene snaps. “How do I make you leave me alone?”

“Well, what would you’ve wanted if you had a psychic breakdown? For me to call your parents?”

“Ugh, no,” Eugene scoffs. “That’d be the worst. As much as I hate to say it he’s probably in denial about it.”

“He thinks he’s haunted.”

“Yikes. What about Pan?”

“Pan and him broke up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re wrong, you know,” Eugene says. “I do have a close circle of friends.”

Shane gasps dramatically and Eugene jabs an elbow into his side. “The Try Guys,” Eugene continues. “They didn’t become that way out of my free will, but all that time spent together in all those crazy situations kinda made it happen anyway.”

Eugene looks at Shane in expectation.

“And?” Shane says before it clicks. “Oh!”

“Now get out of my spot, Madej,” Eugene says.

Shane reluctantly stands up. He came for advice and he got it, though he didn’t like how it seemed to be on him in the end. Sara had left town, Pan was out of the picture, and he knew Ryan wouldn’t feel happy about it if he talked to the old gang about it.

\----

Seeing that it’s apparently Shane’s job to do something, he gives Bloody Mary a call. The episode with her had been free commercial after all, and so he pressures her to guide him for free. That’s how he finds himself going from one mystery shop to the other after work, until he eventually finds the black tourmaline gemstone she recommended him. It doesn’t look particularly special, like a burned piece of wood really, but he gets a jeweler to make a little hole in it and puts a chain through it anyways.

Ryan, for some reason, doesn’t look pleased to see him either way. “What do you want?” he asks, his big eyes narrowed behind the ajar door. The rattle of his chain door guard becomes obvious as Shane tries to push his way inside to no avail.

“Really?” Shane asks, rolling his eyes. “Let me in already, I’m calling an intervention.”

“Drink this first,” Ryan says, and gives Shane a bottle through the gap.

“Is this holy water?”

“Is that a problem? It was tap water before then.”

Scoffing, Shane grabs the water and takes a sip, immediately wailing and putting on a show for good ol’ Ryan, who’s gotten Shane’s favorite horrified face on (mouth pulled downwards, nostrils flared, eyes wide), before he breaks out laughing.

“You’re such a dick, oh my god,” Ryan shouts before suddenly starting to giggle. He pulls away from the door, and a second later the door chain comes off and the door opens wide. All the lights are turned on in the apartment. There are even candles lit. It looks a little messy, but at least the dishes have been washed, and the sound of the washing machine can be heard from the bathroom. It’s good to know that Ryan didn’t completely lose his sanity.

“So, how are you keeping up on a scale from 1 to 10?” Shane asks, looking around.

“Uh, a solid 8?” Ryan answers, scratching his neck. The bruises on his arms have turned slightly greenish. Shane genuinely doesn’t remember when they showed up there.

“Have you eaten?” Shane asks.

“Uh…” Ryan frowns, looking genuinely unsure.

“I will order a pizza, you find a movie to put on,” Shane says, already reaching for his phone.

“Bossy,” Ryan comments, but does grab his remote to connect Ryan.

“Stand still,” Shane says as he grabs the box from his jacket pocket. He really hadn’t needed the box, it seemed so extra, but it was free and Shane didn’t want to have to bother with untangling the chain when the moment came.

Ryan peaks over his shoulder and Shane quickly turns his head away again. He didn’t want Ryan to have a no homo panic reaction.

“What is it?” Ryan asks, as Shane takes the necklace from the box, and drapes it over Ryan’s neck.

“Oh my god,” Ryan says, his hand coming up to feel the pendant. “You gave me a necklace, dude.”

“Shush, it’s a dude bro necklace,” Shane replies, struggling to make the lock stay open long enough for him to clasps the necklace shut. “It’s black tourmaline. Bloody Mary told me it wards off evil spirits.”

Finally the lock snaps into place, and Shane triumphantly steps back, surveying the sight.

He kind of hoped it’d look better once it was on, but it still looks like someone decided a small piece of burned wood would make a great necklace. But the way Ryan closes his hand around it, looking down with slumped shoulders makes it worth it.

“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff?” Ryan asks, his finger clutching the pendant.

“Nah, but you do,” Shane easily replies. “It’s a happy medium between the two of us. I think it will help you because it’s placebo and you will think it’ll genuinely keep mean ghosts away.”

Ryan sputters with a dry laugh, before he abruptly stills and looks down.

“Thank you,” he says. “You really do care, big guy.”

“Of course I do,” Shane says. “Do you want a hug?”

The way Ryan doesn’t answer might as well be the dudebro way of saying yes. Shane pulls him into a hug and pretends he doesn’t feel Ryan shaking in his arms.

“I,” Ryan’s voice briefly cracks, “I think I’m going to die, Shane.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Shane says and pulls back. “If you were going to die because of a ghost, it would’ve happened a long time ago in all those haunted locations.”

Ryan nods, lips pursing. He doesn’t look particularly relieved to hear that, and it’s not that first time Shane is annoyed that simple logic can’t calm Ryan’s heart like it calms Shane’s.

“Let’s pick a movie, yeah?”

\-----

They watch _Bad Boys 2_ and start _Black Lightning_ on Netflix, eating popcorn and pizza. At some point Ryan gets up to blow out the candles, and refills their cups.

“Your apartment is freezing,” Shane notices as he curls up, feet hanging over the edge of the couch.

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees, not supplying an explanation.

Shane grabs a handful of popcorn. “Air conditioner acting funny?” he asks.

Ryan shrugs. “No. It’s just been like this for a while.”

“What, because of the ghost?” Shane asks, annoyed that Ryan just accepts that this was his life now because of some imaginary ghost instead of actually finding the real cause.

Instead of arguing with Shane, Ryan merely nods once, not looking determined or stubborn. Just tired.

“At least get me a blanket,” Shane complains.

Ryan doesn’t even groan, only gets up and goes to the closet in his bedroom. He pulls out a few fleece blankets, and throws them in Shane’s face with no commentary, before falling back down on the couch.

“Someone needs a nap,” Shane comments as he pulls the blankets off his face.

Ryan only smiles at him, and after another hour they fall asleep on the couch.

\-----

That’s seemingly the end of it. Ryan’s bruises and dark rings fade, and he starts smiling at work again. He even starts up a hardcore training regime with Daysha and Jen, the three of them going every morning before work. Shane sends praise to the effect of placebo, and calls it a win.

Sara comes back from New York, but things aren’t the same, somehow. She seems distant and wary of him, but he figures she will step forward and tell him what’s on her mind when she’s ready.

As the True Crimes episodes are being edited and aired, they make their usual postmortems and mostly have fun with it. The fans had picked up on Ryan’s mood of course, and the narrator had worn long sleeves for a while to prevent rumors, but it seemed that now the boys were back. They were already planning the upcoming Supernatural season and sometimes Ryan would look up randomly when he was doing research and get that devious grin, which meant that he was going to rub some paranormal bullshit theory in Shane’s face in the upcoming future. Shane would shake his finger at him, and Ryan would lift his book and say stupid shit like “Atlantis!”

All the while, he never took off his necklace. Even covered, the gemstone is visible through the cloth, but Ryan just ignored the curious inquiries. If Shane didn’t know better, he would think that Ryan kept its origin private solely because Shane had been the one to give it to him.

“That’s not why,” Ryan immediately denies when Shane asks him about it, as they’re walking towards the room in which the video they agreed to participate is in. “I just don’t think it’s anybody’s business.”

“Oh please,” Shane says. “Everybody knows you’re a paranoid freak, no one would care that you’re wearing an amulet.”

“What?” Quinta asks, coming up in-between them and Shane nearly tramples her down. One of these days one of these small people were going to cause an accident.

“We were just talking about Ryan’s anti-demon kit’s newest addition,” Shane tells her.

“Oh really?” she asks, big eyes coming down to look at the most mysterious object at Buzzfeed office at the moment, and something about the inspecting stare makes Shane understand why it might be private to Ryan. Excluding his no homo reasons, of course, it was nice to keep something private in this kind of field sometimes.

“Yeah, he bought a crucifix from Skt. Peters church on Ebay,” Shane continues.

“Oh that,” Quinta says, sounding disappointed about the lack of juiciness even though she rarely partook in gossip.

They do their guest appearance in the video (taste test), and go back to their desks.

“Hey Ryan,” Shane says. “Could you get me coffee?”

Ryan pulls off his headphones. “What?”

“Coffee. For me. Ya boi.” He says the last sentence in a wry voice.

“Why don’t you get it yourself?”

Shane pouts. “After I provided you demon-proof protection, this is how you treat me?”

Ryan stares at him. “How long are you going to use that against me?” Ryan incredulously asks.

“Until it stops working,” Shane replies, leaning back in glee knowing that he already won. Ryan groans and stands up, smacking Shane on the back of his head as he leaves the office.

Shane goes back to collecting the research notes for Ruining History. It usually takes the backseat when they’re shooting Unsolved, but Shane tries to find the time to shoot an episode now and then.

Ryan has just returned with Shane’s coffee, glowering at Shane’s corner as he walks towards the desk space, when everything starts to shake. People around the office are taking off their headphones as computers and keyboards shake, and Shane quickly saves his notes, because you never know what happened during an earth quake. He dives underneath his desk, seeing his colleagues doing the same. The shaking intensifies, and Shane’s heart is beating a little quickly. He had a bad feeling about this one.

That’s when he hears the sound of something shattering. He looks up from underneath his desk and sees that Ryan has frozen on the middle of the floor, broken coffee cup on the floor.

“Ryan!” he shouts. Ryan is usually the first one to know what to do, being a local. “Ryan, get underneath a desk!”

Steven and Mike are now poking out their heads as well, shouting for Ryan to at least hold unto the wall.

“He’s freezing,” Mike notices.

Shane crawls out from underneath his desk, the ground shaking underneath his feet.

“Ryan!” Shane yells.

And something very peculiar happens. Ryan’s necklace, which is usually tucked in-between his chest and shirt starts to slip out. Ryan isn’t even looking at it as it floats up to his face, but his mouth opens slightly and it looks like he’s gasping for breath. His hands are lifting as the gemstone stops in the air. It’s starting to vibrate.

“Ryan!” Shane screams this time, and it’s as if the sound wakes something, because Ryan is suddenly dragged away, sneakers on their tiptoes as an unseen force makes Ryan fly ten feet back. Ryan slams into the wall, and now Shane is really spooked, struggling to run towards Ryan but it’s like something is holding him physically back.

Shane keeps screaming Ryan’s name, and sees Ryan fall down on his back, lying flat on the floor. His limps are spreading, eyes bulging as he starts to convulse. The earthquake stills, and Shane sprints to Ryan’s side, his legs ten times lighter all of a sudden. The necklace is stilling vibrating in the air.  
“Someone help me!” Shane yells, as he unbuttons Ryan’s shirt. Ryan is rolling his eyes, gasping like something is strangling him.

He hears someone talk to a medic, but Ryan’s face is turning purple, his neck bruising black and blue in front of Shane’s eyes. Shane starts CPR at the medic’s instruction.

“Sh – “ Ryan gasps. “Ho- Ho – ly –“

Shane frowns. “What the Hell, Ryan, not now.“

“H – “ Ryan’s voice cuts off but his lips keep forming the words. The floor starts to shake again, stronger this time, and everything rattles so loudly that Shane can barely hear the other people in the room.

The amulet starts to crack; Shane can’t feel his knees from all the vibrations coming up from the floor. Then the necklace explodes, the pieces flying everywhere and Ryan abruptly stills, his eyes widening.

For a moment, Shane thinks Ryan is dying right in front of him.

But then he falls back onto the floor, and he heaves, finally being able to inhale. A wave of relief washes over Shane as Ryan starts coughing frantically, before promptly passing out.

Shane sits up, and stares at Ryan’s chest as deep steady breaths come in and out of his lungs. When measuring Ryan’s pulse it seems stabile. The shaking fades and then stops.

“Is he alright?” Mike asks, putting a hand on Ryan’s neck. “He feels cold.”

Shane’s feeling like there’s a clump of sand in his throat, and even as he swallows, he finds himself unable to talk.

The ambulance comes, and rolls Ryan away for the second time that month.

\----

Shane stays at the office, even when people are starting to go home. After Ryan had been taken to the hospital, the eeriness of the situation had really set in. The first thing was – and Shane had been so sure his eyes were fooling him, but it was in fact something Steven had confirmed – was the way Ryan had been dragged across the room. Earthquakes don’t do that. Earthquakes make people fall over at most. But no, Ryan had fallen into the wall, standing vertically on his tiptoes. Even if Ryan had been taking the steps, had actually moved his feet at all, he couldn’t have done it so quickly that it looked like a drop.

The second oddity was the floating necklace. Shane is pretty sure that no necklace should just float in the air like that. Also, it was odd how it had seemingly started vibrating so violently that it exploded. And it did explode, because Shane still has cuts on his chin and cheek that proves so. It had almost seemed like magnetic forces had been at play, but a rock isn’t metal and if magnetic forces had in fact been at play, why is it only Ryan’s necklace that had been affected by them?

And third of all, the most daunting of facts: Their office had been the only place where the earthquake had been felt. The other offices hadn’t felt anything at all, only heard the sound of that particular office shaking. Looking at the news, there had only been one earthquake today, but it had been a weak one in South California.

“Shane?”

Shane looks up. At some point his face had fallen into his hands, and Sara, tiny as she is, had sneaked up on him.

She puts a consoling hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go visit him.”

Shane looks at the screen. His eyes are slightly prickly, dry from staring at the screen. “I wanted to finish this for him,” he says, glaring at the Postmortem Ryan had been editing.

“You’ve done enough,” she says. “Let’s take an uber before visiting hours close.”

But Shane doesn’t want to see Ryan. He doesn’t really want to acknowledge what had happened at all, and leaving the office to see Ryan would do exactly that.

\----

When they get there, Daysha, Steven and Jen are already there, looking a little anxious and pale. Ryan’s eyes are shut, and the bruises on his neck even more vivid that before, proving that all of that did actually happen.

“They think it might’ve been a stroke,” Daysha tells him, voice wet.

“Too many of those hotdogs,” Jen jokes shakily.

Sara goes to Ryan’s side, and puts her small hand on his. “He’s so cold,” she whispers. “What happened to his neck?”

“That’s a great question,” a male foreign voice says, and they turn around. Two police officers are standing at the door, a mean-looking doctor glaring at the group behind them.

The officers step into the room, eyes heavy on the group. 

“Who are you people?” the officer that had talked previously asks, looking at their faces. He’s balding and his cheeks are heavy, though he seems fit.

“His colleagues,” Jen answers. “Why are you asking? Why are you here?”

The officer doesn’t answer, but the one besides him mechanically says: “Names, please.”

Shane says his name first because the others in the room are starting to look really uncomfortable. Next is Steven and last (very reluctantly) Daysha tells them her name.

“So what exactly happened to your friend?” the first officer asks. Shane decides to call him Bob. He looks like a Bob.

“What are you talking about? He had a stroke,” Daysha defiantly claims.

The two officers look at each other, and the three old Test Friends look at each other.

Then Shane looks at the glowering Doctor, and it clicks.

“Is it because of his neck?” Shane asks.

Bob lifts a brow. “Your friend shows every sign of being beaten and strangulated. But that’d be impossible, right? Seeing that it happened in broad daylight during work hours in a full office.”

Shane feels himself go cold. “What,” he snickers, “you think that the office conspired to kill him?”

Bob doesn’t answer.

“Are you crazy?” Shane exclaims. “Our office is watched 24/7, we’re an international company!”

“Then I guess your colleagues will be able to testify.”

“There was an earthquake, sir,” Jens tells him. “Most people were taking cover underneath their desks, like we’re instructed to do so during an earthquake.”

“That’s convenient,” the other officer says. “See, there was no earthquake in Los Angeles today except for your office.”

“You can contact our legal team,” Daysha coolly breaks in. “They’ll provide you surveillance tapes. I don’t think we have more to talk about.”

Officer 2’s nostrils flare.

Jen seemingly agrees with this, crossing her arms.

Shane sighs, his heart beating rapidly. “Look. We find the whole thing just as weird as you do.”

“It’s a shame,” Bob says as he turns to go. “My kid loves your videos.”

Shane makes a face at his back, and they all seem to collectively hold their breath until the door closes.

“We’re fucked,” Jen immediately breaks out. “They think we fucking tried to kill him!?”

Daysha purses her lips.

Shane turns his head and looks at the person in question. Seeing Ryan now, he understands why the doctor reported it. His face has been cut from the exploding gem, his neck is swollen and colored, and there’re probably even more bruises from the fall on his body.

Sara puts her hand on Shane’s shoulder. “He’ll be alright. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

\----

Shane stays there until visiting hours are over. He wants to be there when Ryan wakes up. Not to assure him or anything, just to convince Ryan that he was in actuality assaulted by a bear and that everything he thinks he remembers is just a dream. Ryan would be disbelieving, but Shane would keep the mask in place, filming the whole scene, and eventually Ryan would freak out and it’d be hilarious, even though there’s nothing funny about being assaulted by a bear . Or being tricked into using heroin or joking about murder. There’s nothing funny about people who genuinely think they’re haunted, there’s nothing funny about hauntings or poltergeists or demons, there’s nothing funny about strangulation, nothing funny about nearly dying, there’s nothing funny about this.

There’s nothing funny about this at all.

Eventually he leaves, calling an uber. It’s a tiny car, and Ryan would probably make fun of the way Shane has to fold his legs to fit there. Sara is doing a video, so he isn’t going to hear from her anytime soon. He thinks that might be for the better.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It wants to kill you,” Ryan says, his voice choking. “It wants you gone.”

Shane wakes up because he’s hungry. He groans because it’s 6 in the morning, and it feels like the evening before hasn’t dulled with sleep at all. It’s still stark, open and sensitive like a cut and the amount of thoughts in his head feels like a hundred people trying to force themselves through just a couple of doors.

He’s too tired to get up but he can’t fall asleep. Eventually he takes his phone, noticing that it’s nearly running out of battery. There’re two messages. One from Jake, and one from his boss.

 _Why does the police think you’ve attacked my brother?_ Jake asks.

 _Please make time in your schedule to attend an acute meeting in room 1046 8 AM today –_ Boss

Shane gets up. He wants to visit Ryan before the meeting, so he quickly fries some eggs and bacon, and he’s still chewing by the time he gets into the Uber. Jake is already waiting for him in front of the hospital, and Shane doesn’t know if he should go for a hug or defend himself.

Jake’s eyes are red. “He still hasn’t woken up,” he says in that small, husky voice that’s so unlike its usual casual confidence. “Mom and dad are in there.”

Shane hangs his head. “Jake, I would never do anything to your brother.”

Jake nods quickly, sniffing. “I know, I know. I know he’s your really good friend, but – “ Jake wipes his eyes, “ - it’s just the way the police make it sound. But, I mean, I’ve seen the bruises. They go all the way from his chin to bellow his Adam’s apple. It looks too blunt to have been hands or a – or a garrote, I don’t even know –“

Shane puts an arm around Jake’s shoulders, and Jake hides his face in his hands.

“It just doesn’t make sense?” Jake asks. “How was his face cut? Why does his spine show signs of whiplash?”

“His necklace exploded while I was doing CPR,” Shane says, pointing at his own face. Jake squints up at him, then gently moves Shane’s face to see his cheek better. Jake would become a good doctor one day. “I don’t know how though.”

“This is so messed up,” Jake tells him.

They go inside. Ryan’s dad and mom, Steve and Asami, are sitting on the visit chairs, faces blank. The same two police officers as the day before are standing there, writing on their stupid little pads.

“You’re back again,” Bob says. “Just the man we wanted to talk to.”

Shane rubs his forehead. “Do we have to do this right now? In front of him?”

If Daysha had been here, she probably would’ve snorted that his reckless and unpunished cockiness was white privilege at its peak. But Daysha wasn’t here right now, and if Shane’s Patronus had been had animal, it would’ve been a moose and moose don’t give a fuck, they were just big and awkward.

“We can step outside if you want,” Officer 2 suggests.

“He’s waking up,” he hears Asami say, and he turns around.

Ryan’s eyes are bloodshot, but groggily open. He blinks a couple of time, inhaling sharply before frowning.

“Ryan?” Asami calls out, her hands cupping her son’s.

He looks up at her. “Mom?” he calls out, voice so hoarse he sounds like an old mam. She smiles encouragingly at him, and he squeezes his eyes shut. “Why am I in the hospital?”

Nobody really knows how to answer, and Ryan’s eyes land on the police officers.

“Why is the police here?” he asks, and as his pitch rises his voice breaks. He sits up, and pays attention to the IV in his arm. “What the Hell?”

“Calm down,” Steven sooths. “They’re just here to check up on things.”

“Why?” Ryan exclaims. “I want to go home.”

“Now, now, son,” Bob says. “We’re not here to arrest you or anything.” As he says it, he already sounds suspicious of Ryan’s defensive reaction.

“I want my lawyer,” Ryan says, well knowing that he doesn’t have one.

“Easy, little guy,” Shane breaks in, and Ryan blinks and squints in Shane’s direction. Shane realizes he’s been leaning against the wall on the far side of the room, and steps forwards.

Ryan stares incredulously at him. “What’s going on?”

“The police thinks I beat you up,” Shane straight-out answers, a smile already tugging at his lips about the ridiculousness of it.

Ryan dumbly stares at him for a moment, before his gaze wanders to the police officers. A big stupid grin is broadening on his lips, before he guffaws. “Oh my god,” he wheezes. “Shane?” he says, voice strangled with laughter. His heart rate is spiking, but Jake and Shane is getting infected with his laughter, starting to laugh as well. “He couldn’t put me in the hospital, unless his head one day became so big that it fell of his neck and impacted with mine.”

“Okay, fella, what happened then?” Bob asks, looking surprisingly humored at Ryan’s indignation.

“An earthquake?” Ryan asks, squinting as he recalls what had happened. “I fell, and I couldn’t breathe all of a sudden? Shane gave me CPR, and I guess I passed out.”

Shane looks triumphantly at the police officers.

“Are you sure, son?” Bob asks.

“Positive,” Ryan confidently answers. “Wait, what makes you think I was attacked?” he asks.

He stills, eyes widening. His hand comes down to his neck, groping around.

“Where’s my necklace?” Ryan asks. His heart rate is spiking again, and he’s starting to breath faster. “Tell the nurses to get my necklace, I need to have it on me – “

“Uh,” Shane says. “Your necklace broke during the earthquake, Ryan. Sorry.”

“I need my necklace, or the ghost is going to come back!” Ryan squeaks.

“That’s unfortunately not something we can help with,” Officer 2 says, and it’s not long after that that they leave.

\----

Shane goes to work, and has just time enough to tell people that Ryan has woken up and is alright, before he has to go to the meeting.

To his surprise, the room is almost full with the Buzzfeed that he shares office with. His boss, Zoe, looks pissed and people in suits are looking judgmentally at them.

“’Sup,” Shane greets. “Before we start, I’d just like to say that Ryan woke up and told the police officers that no one attacked him.”

Zoe’s shoulders drop with relief, before she re-tenses. “Still, sit down.”

In the first hour, Zoe and the Buzzfeed lawyers talk a lot about Buzzfeed as a brand and how clean of an image they’ve had so far, and how hard their founders had struggled to make such a diverse company work. Eventually she starts talking about lying and the line between right and wrong and credibility and at the end of it her speech has become so vague and yet pointed that Eugene ends up asking if there’s something she’s thinking about in particular.

That makes her mad, but she ends up turning the projector on and playing a video from her computer.

It’s a video of them working in their office. She skips the video until it’s when the office starts shaking. Like Shane remembers, most of the office gets underneath their desks. Ryan drops the cup, freezing.

The only new thing is the shadow that seems to slam into Ryan’s body, dragging him into the wall. He falls and by the time Shane is there, the shadow has encased Ryan’s head, until it eventually disappears as Ryan passes out.

An unsettled mummer is spreading in the room, and Zoe shuts down the window with a gloomy expression.

“Was Ryan in on it?” Zoe asks.

Shane, to be honest, stops listening. Because this is it. This is the final sign he can’t ignore. Ryan has said it, the hospital can’t explain it, the police couldn’t believe it, and now it’s on tape.

“What, you think we corrupted the tape?” Daysha asks.

“Who told the police that Buzzfeed should give up this security tape as evidence?” Zoe asks, looking straight at Shane. “This ain’t the right way to get publicity to your show, Shane.”

Shane lifts a brow. “Uh, excuse me have you even watched the show?” he asks in anger. “I don’t believe in any of this shit, I have a huge fandom based on my lack of faith. Why the Hell would I –“

“That’s besides the point,” Zoe interrupts and really he gets why she’s pissed and how the odds are against him, really. Was this how it felt to be Ryan and any of the victims in the Supernatural season? Have no one believe you, even with the evidence there? “We’re lucky Ryan didn’t play along, and we aren’t getting investigated.”

Later, Shane leaves the office with slumped shoulders.

“That’s so wild, man,” Daysha comments. “We caught that on tape! Too bad we can’t publish it.”

“No one would believe us anyway,” Shane dejectedly comments.

“Ryan was right all along,” Jen says, awed. “Ghosts must be real now, right? Didn’t Ryan go on and on about how he was haunted a few weeks ago?”

That makes Shane stiff with consideration. If that had really been an attack from a ghost… well, he always said he wouldn’t believe it until he saw it, and even though he hadn’t downright seen the ghost, what had happened was more than convincing. In this case, ghosts seem like the only thing that makes sense, even though Shane would never admit to it.

Which explains why he goes all the way to the garage to make the phone call he does.

“Hello, Bloody Mary,” Shane greets when the Queen of Voodoo picks up. “How ya doing?”

“Like I might start charging for these phone calls,” she dryly answers. “I guess the gemstone didn’t pull through?”

“Eh, it did for a while,” Shane lets her know. “Uhm, this is kind of a sensitive information, but lets say – hypothetically – that the office one day starts rattling like a really bad earthquake, and a certain believer is dragged across the room without moving, and you know, he’s apparently strangulated by an invisible force and the gemstone explodes?”

That makes Bloody Mary quiet for a while, before she tentatively asks: “Is he doing alright?”

“Yeah, he woke up this morning. He remembers what happened, but doesn’t seem unsettled.”

“Does he seem different somehow?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Nah, not really. Should I get him another necklace?”

“It’s probably too late for that,” Bloody Mary thoughtfully lets him know and a chill runs down his spine. “Stay as close to him as possible. If it gets worse, make use of the number I’m gonna text you in a moment.”

“What, why me?” Shane asks.

“Because you’re demon-proof, baby!” she exclaims, imitating his own voice before she hangs up.

\----

Sara comes over that evening. He actually cooked for them, BBQ chicken and rice, and they joke and laugh like always. Shane’s mind is off Ryan for once, thank fuck he’s so tired of thinking in circles. She sits on the counter as he prepares the food and they make out a lot. Her smile is warm and her eyes do their same old trick, where his stomach flutters and his heart beats a little quicker. If he had been anyone else, he might even have said that they made him feel spiritual somehow. Unfortunately, she leaves before dinner is even ready, and Shane tries not to overthink about how distant she’s been lately. It was better not to think of it, really. He should wait until she’s ready to talk about it.

He shoots Ryan a message, asking for an update on his health, and starts the queue on his Netflix account.

His phone beeps not one minute later.

 _I wanna go home,_ Ryan messages, ignoring Shane’s initial question.

 _Have u been cleared for take-off?_ Shane jokingly writes back.

 _Is it okay if I stay at your place?_ Ryan asks.

_Sure do you have a change of clothes with you?_

_Yeah, Jake brought me a bag of the essentials._

_Sweet, can u take an uber or do u want me to come get you?_

_Im good, I will be there in 30._

Well, Bloody Mary did tell him to keep Ryan close, as much as Shane honestly doesn’t feel mentally prepared for any of this. At least he finally bought an air mattress, so hopefully there would be no awkwardness tonight.

He’s not ready to admit that ghosts are a thing, not ready to face the fact that Ryan might be possessed by one, he’s not ready to take on that responsibility of caring for Ryan, and he definitely hates how unsure the future seems. What’s going to happen now? Is Ryan going to be alright? Is there some sort of instruction manual? Should Shane contact father Thomas? Does Ryan know he’s possessed? Should Shane tell him, or would it only make it worse?

30 minutes pass while Shane gets the air mattress pumped and gives the duvet new linen. When the doorbell rings, Shane has already made a new bowl of caramel corn, Ryan’s favorite.

Shane opens the door, and Ryan looks truly terrible. His neck has been bandaged, but his eyes are still red and his lips are chapped.

“Hey man,” Shane greets, trying to stay casual. What if the ghost knew that Shane knew? Wouldn’t it be best for it not to catch suspicion? “Come on in.”

Ryan smiles shakily. ”Thanks for letting me stay over,” he says.

“No problem,” Shane lets him know.

“Where’s Sara?” Ryan asks.

“Oh she went home,” Shane answers.

“Huh,” Ryan says, dropping his bag and taking off his denim jacket. “To call New York?”

Shane frowns. “Why would she call New York?” he asks.

Ryan stares at him, his eyes wide. “She hasn’t… told you yet?”

“Told me what?”

“I’ll let her tell you,” Ryan says, looking nervously around. “Uhm, can I borrow your bathroom?”

Shane stares at him for a small minute, caught between pointing out that Ryan never asked if he could borrow a bathroom before or forcing him to tell him what Sara was hiding. “Sure,” he eventually lets up.

Ryan nods once, before quickly leaving the living room.

Shane sighs, scratching his neck before sitting down on his couch and shooting Sara a message. When Ryan comes back, he’s in boxers and a T-shirt and he lies down on the air mattress, snuggling one of the pillows underneath the dubet.

“I made popcorn,” Shane says, offering the bowl.

Ryan stares at the bowl for a moment, before hesitantly grabbing a handful of it, rolling to face the TV again.

“So, how are you feeling?” Shane asks.

Ryan shrugs a shoulder. “Tired. Oddly cold.”

Shane licks his lips. “Do you… feel different?”

Ryan stiffens. “What do you mean?”

“You know, like you’re still haunted or whatever?”

“Not really,” Ryan says, sounding a little relieved. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t felt its presence for a while.”

“You could before?”

“Yeah, and I know that you think it’s sleep paralysis, but seriously I could feel it watching me sometimes. Sometimes I felt like I could see it crawling the walls. After I burned that sage, I felt relatively safe in my apartment though.”

Normally Shane would’ve said that was the power of placebo, but what Ryan reported sounded logical. He hadn’t only seen the ghost when he was falling asleep, but also felt it in his waking hours. Of course there had been a small period of time where Ryan had been so sleep-deprived that everything he heard, felt or saw might as well have been lucid dreaming.

But. Ryan had been sleeping well for a while, and he had had his amulet. It made sense that that had protected him, and that the ghost would’ve gone for his neck while at work if his home had been secured.

The fact that Ryan couldn’t feel it around him anymore, but felt cold, probably pointed to possession if the horror movies had taught Shane anything.

Should he bring it up? Maybe all of this was a fuse. Maybe bringing it up would make Ryan freak out and make everything worse. If Ryan was possessed right now, did that mean that Shane was in actuality talking to a ghost?

How could he even test that? Ryan had been acting normal so far. Asking him a safe question would be a waste of time, considering how the ghost could probably browse Ryan’s memories if his current behavior said anything.

Should he call father Thomas? Brother Carlos? Should they make a video out of it, now that they’re at it?

Ryan sighs. “Stop thinking.”

“You stop thinking,” Shane repeats in an annoying voice.

Ryan turns and looks at him, but he does it in a funny way?

Wait, could Ryan possibly kill Shane in his sleep?

Bloody Mary had said he was demon-proof. Which probably also meant ghost-proof. But that just prevented him from becoming possessed, not stabbed in the stomach.

“What are you thinking about?”

Nice try, ghost.

“Nothing,” Shane says, trying to remember if he has a cross lying around here. Could he google the exorcism rite and just do it himself? “Religion.”

Ryan turns his head from the TV so Shane could see his disgruntled face. “I thought you were an atheist.”

“I am,” Shane says, remembering that Ryan’s father is Catholic and Ryan went to a Christian college. He always suspected that Ryan might be more religious than he cares to admit, considering he believes in the power of holy water. “My parents are actually Jewish though.”

“Really?” Ryan asks. “I didn’t know that about you.”

“My past is shrouded in mystery,” Shane informs him.

Ryan looks up at him, considering. “What else don’t I know about you, Madej?”

“I also go by the name of C.C. Tinsley,” Shane tells him.

Ryan lights up in a grin. “Cool. I also go by Ricky Goldsworth.”

Shane mock-gasps. “My arch-nemesis.”

Ryan wheezes. “You’re so dumb,” he giggles.

\----

Shane wakes up because something doesn’t feel right. He sits up, and rubs his eyes, quickly checking his watch. It’s 3 AM. He blinks blearily, and that’s when he notices the sound of stuff rattling. He’s only heard that one time before, and that was when the fake earthquake had happened.

He jumps up from the bed, and goes to the living room, where Ryan should be sleeping.

When he opens the door, he finds Ryan standing right outside of it. Shane immediately knows something is wrong, because Ryan’s eyes are empty as he stands in front of Shane’s door. His living room is shaking subtly, and a clump forms in Shane’s throat.

“Ryan?” he calls out, and Ryan’s head falls to the side, limp despite his stiff frame. Like it’s broken.

“Ryan?” Shane calls again, frantic as the shaking gets worse.

Rather suddenly, Ryan blinks and his gaze comes alive, landing on Shane. But something tells Shane that it’s not really Ryan looking at him right now.

God, he should’ve consulted Father Thomas. He would’ve actually given Shane concrete advice instead of cryptic tellings.

_Stay as close as possible._

Oh well.

Shane steps forwards and puts his hand on Ryan’s cheek. Ryan flinches, and encouraged Shane raises the other hand, holding Ryan’s face. Ryan rolls his eyes for a moment, swaying and abruptly the shaking stops.

Did it actually… work?

Shane inspects Ryan’s closed eyes, trying to figure if Ryan was going to fall or not.

Then Ryan starts gagging and Shane has just enough time to jump back to avoid Ryan throwing up on his shoes and Shane doesn’t know why, but Ryan throwing up on his carpet somehow becomes the last thing Shane can take today.

“Oh my god,” Shane groans. “What is my life?”

Ryan moans, holding his stomach. What looks like porridge and a little popcorn lie on the floor.   
“Alright, buddy,” Shane says, grabbing his waste bin and putting it in front of Ryan. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful,” Ryan groans. “What happened?”

“You got sick,” Shane sighs. “Go drink some water.”

“It wants to kill you,” Ryan says, his voice choking. “It wants you gone.”

“Sure, Ryan,” Shane says, not scared because if this is what the ghost’s hate feels like, it will have to do better than that.

“I’m so cold,” Ryan whines.

Shane doesn’t answer, only takes Ryan’s arm that is indeed cool to the touch and pulls him in to the bathroom, where Shane makes him cleanse his mouth with mouth wash, before forcing him to drink some water.

“It’s going to be okay,” Shane comforts, rubbing Ryan’s back with his hand before leading him to Shane’s bedroom. He opens his closet and looks for something Ryan can wear.

“It wants me to die too,” Ryan whispers.

“Look, I won’t let it,” Shane says, finding the taupe sweater his mom knitted him. He puts the sweater on Ryan, and Ryan looks hopelessly at Shane.

“How long have you known?” Ryan asks, as Shane goes to the bedroom door and closes it shut.

“Since it happened,” Shane admits. “The surveillance footage was more than convincing.”

Ryan stares at him, before a dry sob makes way out of his mouth. “I’m going to die.”

“No, you’re not,” Shane dismisses.

Ryan looks up at him, his eyes becoming wet. Shane sighs, and pulls him into his arms, and really, they’ve hugged more the past few weeks than they have for the entirety of their friendship.

Ryan is shaking, his body cold and stiff,

“Look, I’m calling Brother Thomas, okay?” Shane offers. “We’re gonna have this fixed as soon as we can, but right now I need you to calm down and take some deep breaths. Alright, buddy?”

Ryan quickly nods, and sits down on the bedside. Shane runs to the kitchen to get the supplies to clean up, and dials Father Thomas’ number. As expected Father Thomas doesn’t pick up the phone, but Shane leaves him a desperate voicemail, asking the priest to drop by with his exorcism team either early in the morning or come visit them at Buzzfeed as soon as he can. By the time Shane comes back, Ryan hasn’t fallen back to sleep, still sitting stiffly on the bedside.

“Don’t you want me to sleep in the living room?” he asks as soon as Shane steps into the room.

Shane sits on the other side of the bed, and quickly gets underneath the covers. “You’re gonna sleep here, where I can make sure you won’t get into any trouble.”

Ryan nods, eyes glazed, and slowly gets underneath the covers, back turned to Shane.

Hesitantly Shane reaches for his hand. As expected it feels lifeless and clammy, but Shane knots their fingers together anyway.

“This is so gay,” Ryan sullenly jokes.

“Shush,” Shane says. “Come over here.”

Ryan scoots over to the middle of the bed, where Shane meets him. He drapes an arm over Ryan’s back, and Ryan tenses.

“We’re gonna figure this out, buddy,” Shane assures. “We’ll have this ghost gone in no time.”  
\-----

In the morning, Ryan refuses breakfast but seems to be back to his old self. He doesn’t bring up the episode, only very smugly tells Shane “I told you so”, before his face falls. After Shane has eaten breakfast, and Ryan has showered, they take the bus to Buzzfeed headquarters.

People throw them odd looks, and Ryan goes to get coffee. As soon as Shane has thrown himself in his chair, Steven rolls over to him.

“So,” Steven says.

Shane looks at him. “Yes?”

“That’s like the fourth morning you two are coming in together in a month.”

“So?”

“He’s literally wearing your clothes.”

Shane stares incredulously at Steven. “Did you forget I have a girlfriend?”

Steven shrugs. “I don’t know what’s up, but you and Ryan have been acting funny.”

For some reason Shane finds himself feeling angry, and before he can stop it, he snaps: “If you’ve failed to notice the two hospitalizations, Ryan hasn’t been doing so well. I’m trying to be a good friend, so instead of creating gossip could you help me by doing the same?”

Steven’s eyes widen. “Woah, I’m sorry, man,” he apologizes. “I didn’t get it was that serious.”

Shane sullenly looks at the screen. “Well it is, so do me a favor and keep an eye on him,” he says, a little calmer.

Ryan comes back with coffee, cheerfully greeting Steven, who very awkwardly asks how Ryan is. Ryan’s grin fades a little bit, like he’s unto Steven, and he very quickly tells Steven that things are alright and gets to work.

Shane is considering calling Father Thomas again at noon, having heard nothing from the priest, when he gets a phone call from the reception, saying that a priest is here. Shane sighs with relief, and tells Ryan that he’s going to the bathroom.

Father Thomas is waiting in the lobby, looking a little red-faced and sweaty. “I’m sorry, I came as quick as I could,” he says. “I read your message. He manifested in the witching hour?”

Shane nods. “I don’t know what to do, Father. A Voodoo Queen told me to just stay by his side, but it’s only becoming worse.”

At that Father gives him a considering glance. “You could make a fine exorcist, I agree.” Before explaining, he asks Shane to take him to Ryan.


	4. Chapter 4

When Ryan sees Father Thomas he pales immediately. And not only that; the temperature in the office drops rather suddenly, and Shane doesn’t miss how several of his co-workers are raising their phones as soon as he sees the priest.

At least the Try Guys are out filming.

“What is he doing here?” Ryan asks, standing up from his office chair. His tone is venomous yet scared, and Shane quickly gets in-between them. Something tells him that the ghost possessing Ryan might be well aware of what Father Thomas is doing here.

“Relax, Ryan,” Father Thomas says, and for the first time Shane wonders why the priest didn’t bring the rest of his team. Not that Shane is in doubt that Ryan is indeed possessed, but it’d be nice to have trained professionals that might be able to calm Ryan down.

“Uh, guys could you take this elsewhere?” TJ requests, having taken off his headphones.

“Yeah let’s do that,” Shane quickly agrees, already feeling the ground starting to vibrate and it’s coming from Ryan’s direction. He’s sure the others can’t even tell, but Shane can recognize the feeling anywhere.

“No,” Ryan whispers. His voice is hoarse, and a horrible feeling unfolds in Shane’s stomach. “Let’s not.”

“Ryan, no – “ Shane starts. The ground starts shaking for real, Ryan’s eyes flash and then Shane can feel Father Thomas stumble into him before falling to the ground. “No, no, no, no – “

Shane kneels at Father Thomas’ side as people start shouting from their computers if Father Thomas is alright. But the priest isn’t. The old man is pawing at his neck, his eyes starting to bulge as he tries to speak but no sign comes out.

“Ryan, stop it!” Shane shouts. Ryan has gone still, intensely staring at the Father’s shaking figure on the floor. “Ryan – “

An invisible force wrenches Shane away from the priest and into the desk, and for a moment he blacks out. The force keeps pushing at him, pushing and pressing and for a moment he feels like he can’t breathe.

Then suddenly the pressure is gone, and Shane cannot only breathe, but he is filled with the lightest feeling ever. It feels like he’s floating, like he’s getting a long needed hug, like he’s feeling safe in a room surrounded by the people he loves, all at once.

It feels like the time he fell into the local lake as a child. His winter clothes had quickly become soaked with water, weighing his body down, and his skin had been stinging, almost burning, with the sensation of the ice-cold water. He hadn’t known how to swim back then, and for a moment, as he sank while helplessly fighting to stay afloat, he had felt so small and alone. Then he had felt strong arms around him, and everything inside him had sung, had taken a relieved breath. The relief had been immediate.

A terrible wail pierces Shane’s ears, and abruptly he realizes that he’s stood up at some point, that Thomas is gasping at his feet and that Ryan is holding his face, a terrible nosebleed protruding from his nose.

“Another day at the job,” Steven comments from his desk, lowering his phone.

\----

Mike drives Father Thomas to the hospital. His injuries aren’t that bad, but he’s an old man and the choking had made him disoriented. Ryan is trying to stop his nosebleed, and well, Shane is coming to terms with the fact that this is his life now. At some point the Try Guys show up, and after Andrew has debriefed them, they promptly freak out, making the whole ordeal even worse. Keith is skeptic, but Shane can tell he’s scared, because he is fiercely rationalizing everything that happened, being obnoxiously loud about it (God, is this how Shane sounds in Ryan’s ears?). Eugene has gone silent and thoughtful, but Zach drops the conversation strangely quickly, starting to complain about his back, while Ned is shouting on the phone with his wife.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks Ryan, who’s lying on a couch with his hand on his eyes and napkins stuffed into his nostrils.

Ryan doesn’t stop staring at the wall. “I tried to make it stop.”

“I know, Ry,” Shane assures. “I know you didn’t want to hurt him.”

“It wasn’t me!” Ryan exclaims.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“What did you do to it?” Ryan asks.

“Me?” Shane repeats.

“Yeah, man,” Steven says behind him, and Shane jumps. “Everything was going bananas, and then you suddenly just stood up and glared at Ryan so hard that he just fell over.”

Shane shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m sure it was just a coincidence.”

That’s when Zoe walks into the office that abruptly goes quiet. She looks around, immediately sensing the change.

“So,” she drawls, “what happened here exactly?”

“He was feeling faint, so Mike drove him to the hospital,” Eugene claims, thinking fast.

Zoe sends them a suspicious glare, but eventually when they all stick to the same story, she leaves.

“We lied to our boss, oh my god,” Zach hisses.

“So you’re admitting that it was a ghost?” Steven says.

“Shut up, Steven.”

“We had to,” Eugene breaks in, grabbing his phone and starting to text. “The last time we told the truth, she thought we were compromising the integrity of the company and let’s just be honest here,” he pauses for a moment, “who can blame her?”

Shane shrugs too.

“So, Ryan,” Ned says, a little red-faced as he looks at Ryan with a stiff smile, “you’re possessed, huh?”

Ryan’s shoulders slump. “I guess.”

“Do you feel any different?” Zach asks, eyes wide.

Ryan stands up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He walks away, and it’s at this point an intern comes running from As/Is, and reminds them that Ryan and Shane are starring in a video in 10 minutes.

\----

“Ryan?” Shane calls out, knocking on the bathroom stall’s door.

He hears Ryan sniff.

“Ryan, things will be alright,” Shane says. “Bloody Mary gave me a number in case it got worse, but we have a video in five, and we really need to go there.”

Asking Ryan to go back to work is so fucking unfair to Ryan, but Shane doesn’t have choice. Ryan missing out on work won’t help their situation, but only worsen it.

He hears a shaky inhale. “I don’t want to hurt people.”

“I know, buddy,” Shane says.

\-----

They show up 10 minutes late, Ryan’s eyes red and puffy but at least his nose has stopped bleeding. When Kelsey, who is producing the video, asks about it, Ryan makes up a lie about allergies, and after a minute or two of skeptic silence she gets them seated.

“So what’s gonna happen today?” Shane says, clapping his hands together and putting on the mask he wears at Buzzfeed, a caricature drawing of himself, exaggerated and theatrical.

Kelsey puts four bowls of vibrantly colored pigment in front of them.

“Uh oh,” Ryan says and starts wheezing. The pigments are azure, lilac, Tyrian purple and yellow and Shane is already having a bad feeling about it.

“So what are we doing with these?” Shane asks, and Ryan turns to grin ominously at him, before grabbing some of the powder, and at once Shane realizes what’s going to happen.

“Ryan, no, don’t you – “ he tries anyway.

Ryan throws it in Shane’s face, and Shane yelps in surprise. Ryan starts cackling like a crazy person, and Shane mumbles grudgingly, grabbing the purple and returning fire. Ryan shields himself with his arms, cackle transforming into a loud, full-blown laugh and Shane finds that he has missed the sound.

“Idiot, this is your sweater!” Ryan crows.

“I don’t care,” Shane exclaims, jumping up and grabbing a bowl the same time Ryan takes one.

Shane throws the entire content at Ryan, and Ryan shrieks, shoveling the pigment into his hand and slapping Shane in the face with it. Shane grabs him by the wrist, clenching his eyes shut to protect them from the attack that follows and Ryan howls with laughter, emptying the content on Shane’s head. Shane can’t help but laugh, the tension of the past few days seeping out and as he grabs for the other bowl, Ryan wrings himself loose and runs to the other side of the table.

“Face me, Ryan!” Shane shouts, throwing lilac pigment at said person.

“No!” Ryan shouts back, circling the table as Shane stalks him. So far Ryan’s sweater is the only dirty part of him, and Shane is planning to change that.

Shane pushes the table (growing up with one brother close to his age taught him that much) Ryan stumbles back, crying out in surprise, and Shane quickly circles the table, tackles Ryan and after having straddled him, Shane very triumphantly dyes Ryan’s face lilac and because that isn’t enough, he rubs his hair and face into Ryan’s, Ryan shrieking the whole time. Eventually Ryan rolls Shane over, clenching his thighs around Shane’s hips as he wildly grabs for the bowl on that table, that is just out of reach.

“Ha, shortstack!” Shane laughs, and Ryan grabs the table and pulls it closer to him. He grabs the bowl, and ignores Shane’s cries for mercy.

“No, Ryan, no!” Shane tries, but Ryan only wrestles Shane’s thin wrists, and holds them down over Shane’s head as he empties the content of the bowl on Shane’s face.

Shane holds his breath and clenches his eyes shut, though his glasses thankfully take the worst of it, and only sputters when Ryan’s hold on his wrist loosens. 

Ryan laughs like a mad man, powdered with lilac and purple, and Shane succeeds in pushing him off. Only then does he remember the camera man behind them, having circled the table to get a better view. The cameraman quickly moves as Ryan jumps up, grabbing the last bowl and Shane takes the bowl with the yellow content and for ten minutes straight they chase each other, trying very hard to get each other as rainbow-like as possible.

“The internet is going to love this,” Kelsey comments. 

Fifteen minutes later, Kelsey calls it quits and they sit down to do a recap. Shane has folded his hands on the desk, looking at then. They’re mostly purple at this point and every time Shane blinks, a sprinkle of yellow falls down to his cheeks. Ryan can’t stop wheezing.

And things finally feel like they’re coming back to normal.

\-----

_ Can I talk to you?  _ Sara texts Shane. Eugene had invited Shane and Ryan to the bar and Ryan had been weirdly eager to go and drink his problems away even though it’s Wednesday. Shane had declined, wanting to stay home and clear his head from the whole thing, but Steven had promised to keep an eye on him.

_ Sure,  _ Shane texts back.  _ When, where? _

The doorbell rings a second after, and Shane, who is drying his hair with a towel, stands up and opens the door.

Sara is standing outside, looking very nervous and a little frantic.

“Hey, babe,” Shane greets, bowing down to kiss her. “If I didn’t known better, I would think you were standing outside my door like a weirdo before you texted me.”

Sara laughs a little nervously, stepping inside. “No, only girlfriends who’s been stalking their boyfriend’s schedule does that.”

“I was about to make coffee,” Shane smiles, feeling a little worried. “You want some?”

“Yeah.”

They small-talk as Shane makes her coffee just how she likes it. When he’s finished, they go to his living room. The mattress is still on the floor, sheets and duvet in a pile. “I assume you want to talk about what’s been on your mind lately,” he says.

“Forever perceptive, are we?” she says a little giddily, and smiles. He looks at her, and the smile fades.

“I want to talk about New York,” she says. “Look, Shane, I love you. I do. But I think New York really challenged the way I usually look at love, and – “

“Wait, are you breaking up with me?” he asks.

“No, no, no,” she quickly assures. “I…” She sighs.

“Just say it like it is,” he says a little impatiently. For a minute she looks at him, worry and love in her eyes, and Shane just knows he’s not going to like this.

“I fell in love with someone else,” she finally states.

His heart stills for a moment and he can’t help but lean back on his couch, drawing away from her.

“But I’m still in love with you too!” she quickly exclaims.

He stares at her. “You’re, what, poly? Like Gaby?”

“Yeah!” she exclaims in relief. “Exactly like that.”

A weird feeling starts churning his gut. He should feel okay with this, knowing her feelings for him hasn’t changed. But now he recalls the nights she went home early, how she didn’t text him as often anymore, how they haven’t had a night out in a while. She had been there, sure, but not as much as she used to. And he realizes now that she’s been dividing her attention with somebody else.

“His name is Freddy,” she rushes to begin, “he’s an intern, and – “

“Sara, just stop,” Shane stops her. “Have you done anything with him?”

“What?”

“Have you been a date with him? Kissed him? Did you two screw?”

“No!” Sara exclaims. “I didn’t want to do something behind your back, Shane, you know me better than that!”

Shane frowns and looks at his hands. “Does he know about me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Everybody knows about us, Shane.”

“And he doesn’t mind me being there?”

“No. He doesn’t. Buzzfeed wants to send me to New York every second month, and that’s when I’m going to see him the most.”

He tries to come to terms with her words, but the thought of her being in the arms of someone else, sharing something he thought only the two of them had makes everything inside him freeze up.

“I don’t think I can do that, Sara,” he says, slowly and measured to not let his voice shake with frustration and subtle anger.

“Can you at least think about it?” she asks, voice a little pleading.

“Sure,” he says, feeling like he’s giving up. He wants to make her pick, wants her to choose him, but he knows better than to think that it’s that easy. He believes her when she says she stills love him, he really does, and he knows she wouldn’t put their relationship on the line like this if she didn’t have to. He knows this is her fighting for him, but he just can’t come to terms with the fact that there’s somebody else in her heart now.

He says sure, but he knows he’s already decided. The moment she had said she loved somebody else, in truth it had all been over for him. 

“Do you want me to… leave?” she asks, her voice shaking.

“Please,” Shane says, voice quiet.

She nods, eyes becoming wet and she lets herself out.

\----

_ I’m joining, where you at? _

\----

Apparently Eugene got them kicked out of the initial bar Shane was hoping they would be cruising at, and so he has to take an uber to get to the one they’re at. He immediately notices that Devin is there and she has invited Freddy and Safiya. Ryan already looks pretty wasted and when he sees Shane he cheers and buys him a beer. Shane never really liked beer, always preferred something that actually tastes good, but he accepts it.

“So, big guy,” Ryan grins, throwing an arm over Shane’s neck. “What made you decide to join us tonight?”

Ryan must be far too drunk and Shane far too sober, because he actually answers: “Why did Sara tell you about New York?”

Ryan’s grin fades. “She didn’t. Did she tell you?”

“Yeah,” Shane says. “How did you find out?”

Ryan stares blankly at him. “I thought you told me?” 

Shane’s stomach hurts. All of this isn’t making sense. He takes the beer and downs it.

“It’s okay, man, there are other fish in the sea or whatever,” Ryan grins and tightens the arm around Shane’s neck, nearly making Shane bow over.

“You would know,” Shane says. “Man, what’s up with New York stealing our girlfriends?”

Ryan shrugs. “I don’t know, but I’m honestly kind of happy it happened.”

Shane lifts a brow. “Really?”

“Yeah, Helen was sweet and all, but I don’t know,” Ryan grumbles, rubbing his chin. “She could get so quiet and unexcited sometimes. Sometimes I missed her being a little adventurous, you know?”

“Sure,” Shane says. Despite Ryan having dated her for years, Shane had only met her a few times during double dates and group outings. She worked hard and she didn’t like being on social media a lot. It was hard for her to tolerate Ryan vlogging sometimes, and being with an entire group of people doing it often became too much for her.

“Good thing I have my,” Ryan hiccups, “ _ ghoulfriend _ !”

“You’re unabashedly stealing my joke,” Shane chastises.

“Nah, I just borrowed it. Hey, you already drank your… lemme go get another one!”

Ryan gets up and Shane keeps an eye on him as he goes to the bar.

“He seems fine!” Eugene has to shout as he leans across the table.

“Yeah!” Shane affirms. “Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea!”

“Of course it wasn’t!” Eugene happily agrees. “What, you were scared the ghost was going to get drunk too?”

He can’t believe this is his life now, casually discussing if a possessed person should drink. “I don’t know, what if the alcohol lowers his inhibitions and makes him, like, more vulnerable?”

“Nonsense!” Steven shouts and then Ryan arrives with a giant Sex on the Beach.

“You need to get drunk!” Ryan yells as if the drink doesn’t speak for itself.

Shane thanks him and for a while, everything is good. As he drinks, he confesses what happened between him and Sara and admits that it was probably over between the two of them. It wins the group’s sympathy and they take turns getting him drinks. He doesn’t think he’s drunk until he stands up to take a leak, and finds that he’s having a hard time keeping his balance and that Ryan has been gone for a while.

“Where’s Ryan?” Shane asks Devin, not really knowing why he asks, just knowing it’s important to know.

Devin shrugs. “Probably in the bathroom,” she guesses.

Shane shrugs and goes to pee. He’s too dizzy to make a big deal out of it, so he unzips at the urinal. As he lets loose what feels like fifty ounces of pee, he hears a low moan in the bathroom. At first he ignores it, but then it comes back, louder, and Shane thinks it sort of sounds like Ryan’s voice but he’s not sure?

“Ryan?” Shane calls out, and the moan stops. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Ryan says. “I’m just… uh.”

Worried, Shane walks to the bathroom stall. “Do I need to call you an uber?”

“N-no, I’ll be out in a minute,” Ryan nervously declines, and he doesn’t actually sound that sick.

Shane kneels down and sees two pairs of feet. Or more specifically, Ryan’s knees on the floor right in front of a foreign pair of shoes.

“Oh my god,” Shane says, feeling himself blush the same time his stomach clenches. Is… Is Ryan blowing a dude? “Are you blowing a dude?”

“Yes, now please fuck off, Shane!” Ryan exclaims.

Shane is relieved to scramble out of there, dizzily going back to his table. Confused, he tries to remember when he’s heard of or seen Ryan pick someone up like that, but his memory comes up blank. Ryan had used to go out a lot when he was with Helen, but after they broke up Ryan focused on Unsolved and only went to the bar now and then when the crew of the show wasn’t quite ready to go home after a shooting. But Shane had never seen Ryan actually trying to hook up with someone. Nonetheless  _ other dudes _ .

And now Ryan was suddenly blowing someone in a bathroom stall?

This couldn’t be normal.

But then again, it had been a hard month for Ryan and Shane understood the need to let loose. Still, Ryan’s behavior was so unlike him Shane couldn’t help but suspect either the alcohol or the ghost and either weren’t particularly good.

Ryan comes back ten minutes later. His lips are swollen and red in a telling way, and he refuses to meet Shane’s eyes. No one else seems to have noticed his absence and soon Shane forgets about it too in the only way alcohol can make you forget. Ryan sucked a dick, so what? If he was having a sexual revelation, Shane is here for him. Honestly, the whole ghost thing has probably set Shane off into a weird, protective mood. Ryan doesn’t need Shane judging everything he does.

Against Shane’s better judgment, he agrees to go to a club not too far away. Eugene is elevated, and Shane almost forgets about Sara.

In the club most of his colleagues leave them to dance, but Shane feels okay with just standing at the bar and nursing his drink. For some odd reason, Ryan doesn’t go to dance. He stays at Shane’s side, but it’s quiet between them.

Ryan seems jittery and a little nervous.

“You usually don’t stay this long,” Ryan n, leaning forwards.

“Your breath usually doesn’t smell like cum,” Shane says, joking because Ryan’s breath smells mostly like beer.

Ryan pulls back like he’s been burned, taking his beer and swishing his mouth with it.

“Ew, don’t use it like  mouthwash!” Shane exclaims, and Ryan smiles and swallows. Shane can’t help but take notice of the way his Adam’s apple wobbles with the movement, and when he’s done, he laughs.

“I didn’t know you liked dudes,” Shane says, having to shout a little to be heard.

Ryan’s grin fades a little, becomes sultrier. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Madej.”

“Such as you sucking the occasional dick?” Shane asks.

Ryan smirks and shrugs, twisting the bottle in his hand. “What can I say? I have a big mouth, it’s God’s gift.”

Shane feels like something got stuck in his throat. “Exactly how much have you had to drink?”

Ryan looks offended. “I’m opening my heart to you here, man.”

“Alright, alright, sorry,” Shane says, but he can’t help but chuckle. “So, you’re bi?” he asks.

“I guess,” Ryan says. “I just like doing whatever with whoever whenever.”

Shane lifts a brow. He wants to ask why Ryan hasn’t told him before, but he assumes he can’t always make things about himself.

“Wait,” Shane says, suddenly realizing something. “So your pillow wall, you not wanting to touch me unless it’s necessary  _ isn’t _ ‘no homo’-signals you’re sending out?”

“Uh, no,” Ryan says, looking down, his grin turning shy. “I guess it started because of Helen, you know? There’s been so much speculation about the two of us after the Sallie house episode, and she wasn’t a fan.”

“But you two haven’t been together for a while,” says Shane, a little passive-aggressively.

Ryan shakes his head. “I guess it was just a habit after that,” he says. “What, has it been bothering you?”

Now it’s Shane’s turn to shrug. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I guess, I just… I mean, what you’re saying makes sense. As to why you had the whole straight bro façade on.”

Ryan smirks, like he can hear what Shane is actually saying. “Well, if it helps, Helen did feel threatened by you for a while.”

“I don’t see why,” Shane murmurs. Why is he feeling so guilty all of a sudden?

“You don’t?” Ryan asks, because he can never keep his nose out of business that doesn’t concern him, as every ghost in every haunted house should have learned by now.

Ryan leans into the bar, his body facing Shane and that makes Shane nervous for some reason. “I mean, we’re more together than we ever are with our girlfriends. And we have enough chemistry for the Internet to take notice.”

“I wouldn’t call it chemistry,” Shane says, his voice lowering as Ryan steps closer. The clump stays in Shane’s throat, and Ryan gets a weird expression on his face. It’s foreign and a little scary, and a thin slice of fear settles in Shane’s gut.

“What would you call it then?” Ryan asks, his voice low. Shane realizes the expression on Ryan’s face is predatory.

“I don’t know,” Shane lamely answers, Ryan so close now that Shane has to look down at him and Ryan has to tilt his neck all the way back.

“So…” Ryan’s lids lower, and Shane can feel Ryan’s hand come to rest on Shane’s hip. “You don’t feel… anything?”

“Ryan,” Shane hoarsely warns.

“Answer the question,” Ryan says.

“Sara …”

“You two are over.”

“No, we’re…”

“So pull away from me, big guy,” Ryan dares him.

Shane sighs, and he can feel his eyes slip closed. “You’re making a mess out of things, Ryan.”

“Answer the question,” Ryan orders.

Shane blinks slowly. There’s something in Ryan’s eyes, something intense and seductive, and it’s making it hard for Shane to remember what they’re talking about.

Ryan’s hand glides up from Shane’s hip and comes to rest on his shoulder. Shane can’t move his body for some reason. Not when Ryan’s other hand comes up to cup the back of Shane’s head. Not even when the hand makes Shane bow his head down.

Their lips touch, and it’s like everything happens at once. Electricity lights up every cell of Shane’s body, his stomach jumps. His lips burn, and Ryan’s hand tightens on Shane’s neck in a vice grip. He must be standing up on his tiptoes, ‘cause the kiss deepens as he presses in closer.

Shane’s eyes slip closed, and Ryan shakes.

And God, if Sara’s eyes make Shane feel spiritual, he doesn’t know how to explain what happens when Ryan touches him like that. It feels like guilt and want and everything heavenly at the same time. Like this is what Shane has been waiting for, like this is why he’s felt so sad every time Ryan’s deprived him of his touch. Sara and Buzzfeed and the ghost float away on a strong river.

Shane wants so badly.

Ryan pulls back and falls back on his heels.

Shane looks at him, feeling dazed and oddly angry. “Your mouth doesn’t taste like cum. Did you chew some gum in advance?”

Ryan hits his arm, wheezing nervously. “You’re such a dick, oh my god.”

Shane rubs his neck nervously, and his brain tells him that he should tell Ryan never to do that again. But Ryan takes his hand, slotting their fingers together and pulls Shane away from the bar. Shane can feel Ryan shaking, his hand burning in Shane’s.

“Ryan, we shouldn’t do this,” Shane says as soon as they’re outside.

Ryan looks at him, his eyes a little glassy. Then he steps into Shane’s space, putting his hands on Shane’s chest until Shane backtracks and feels the wall behind him. Then Ryan stands up on his tippy toes, wrapping his arms around Shane’s neck and pulls him in again. Shane doesn’t stop him because he’s a stupid moron.

Ryan’s mouth is soft yet demanding and Shane feels himself melt. Ryan’s shaking becomes harder, and Shane just thinks he’s nervous, but then Ryan lets go and crumbles, holding his stomach.

“Are you gonna be sick?” Shane asks, quickly stepping away.

Ryan shakes his head, clenching his eyes shut. “The…. The ghost.”

“ _ What? _ ”

Ryan starts to sweat, the shaking worsening and Shane has no idea what to do. He grabs Ryan’s arm and Ryan sighs, stuttering: “K-keep doing that. Keep touching me.”

That makes Shane feel pretty weird, but he does as Ryan instructs him. Ryan clenches his eyes shut, grimacing like he’s in pain, and Shane notices something dark on Ryan’s neck. He squints, tilting his head and sees that a dark color has dyed the back of Ryan’s neck completely black. He lifts his other hand and puts it on Ryan’s hot neck, and as Ryan gasps, the dark color flinches back from Shane’s touch like oil separating from water.

“What are you doing?” Ryan asks.

Shane’s frown harder. Is his touch… actually repelling the ghost?

The thought awakes anger and more willfully he clenches down.

“S-Shane,” Ryan cries, but Shane can see the dark dye start to fade. “What are you doing?”

“How are you feeling?” Shane asks instead because he thinks he might seriously be on to something for once.

“Better,” Ryan admits, and the hopelessness Shane has been feeling since he realized that Ryan might actually be possessed by a ghost diminishes for the first time. “What can you see?”

“Your neck is turning black in a weird evil spirit sorta way,” Shane reports.

“ _ What _ ?” Ryan shouts, trying to pull away but Shane keeps him still.

“Let’s wait until the color is gone completely before we talk about it,” Shane says.

“Oh my god, oh my god,  _ it’s inside of me _ !” Ryan shouts. 

“We already knew that, Ryan,” Shane says and rolls his eyes.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Ryan croaks.

Shane doesn’t know the answer, but he doesn’t want to upset Ryan further so he says nothing.

“I’m going to die,” Ryan grimly concludes anyway.

“Look, let’s take an uber and I’ll call Bloody Mary when we get home, okay?” Shane tries to reassure, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

Ryan shakes his head, eyes watering. “Shane?”

“Yeah?” Shane answers, completing the order.

“Keep an eye on Jake for me,” Ryan tells him.

“Stop.”

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan growls. “I need you to listen to this.”

Shane angrily grumbles, because he does in fact not need to listen to this. “You’re not going to die, Ryan, just fucking calm down for once,” he exclaims.

“I can’t!” Ryan yells back, voice breaking. He swallows. “Not with this thing inside me. Please just listen to me.”

Shane huffs. “You got one minute.”

Ryan continues: “Keep an eye on Jake for me, and tell my parents I love them. Keep sending Helen those protein powders that are too expensive in New York. Stay on Unsolved.”

“And who would my co-host be?” Shane asks, humoring him.

“I don’t know, man,” Ryan answers. “There are plenty of believers in the office. Pick one you have chemistry with. Patrick? You’re good friends with him.”

“You’re not going to die,” Shane snaps.

“You don’t know!” Ryan yells.

“Yes, I do!” Shane shouts back.

Ryan’s breath is coming quick, and only now does Shane realizing that his breathing is shaking. “You also thought ghosts weren’t real,” Ryan cries. “You also thought I wasn’t haunted. And now I have a ghost inside of me. What else do you know, Shane?”

“Shut up,” Shane says because he doesn’t know and that thought aggravates him.

“Yo, what are you two shouting about?” they hear Eugene say and they turn around.

“Nothing, just leave us alone,” Ryan sobs.

“Man, we’re at a club, how are you crying?” Eugene asks.

“I said just leave us alone!” Ryan wails, and the door from which they walked out slams open and Eugene is thrown backwards towards it.

“Woah, woah, Ryan!” Shane shouts, running in Eugene direction who landed on his back and started to laugh hysterically. “Calm down. Eugene, are you alright?”

“I’m fighting a ghost!” Eugene hollers, quickly getting onto his feet. “Ryan do that again!”

“This is not party trick, for God’s sake,” Shane shouts. “Eugene, get the fuck inside!”

There’s a honk and they turn to see an uber in behind them, waiting for them at the sidewalk

Eugene keeps laughing as Shane gets him on his feet, and pushes him inside. Ryan is still crying like a bitch, and Shane tries to be gentle with him as he gets Ryan inside the uber and closes the door behind him.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No worries, it can’t harm ya,” Bloody Mary assures.
> 
> “Yeah, about that,” Shane says. “Why does my touch repel it?”
> 
> “You don’t know?” Bloody Mary asks. “Shane, you’re – “
> 
> The line suddenly breaks, and Shane looks at his phone, seeing that there’s no connection all of a sudden. The door creaks open behind Shane, and Shane’s heart stutters in his chest.

Ryan’s crying has calmed down a little bit by the time they get to Shane’s apartment.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan sighs, as he wipes his eyes for the fifteen hundredth time. “It just… hit me all of a sudden, you know?”

“I know,” Shane says, putting a glass of water on the table. “Will you be alright, while I call Bloody Mary?”

Ryan sniffs and nods, grabbing for the glass of water. Shane gets up again, and calls Bloody Mary.

She picks up right away. “Shane! I thought it was a matter of time before you called me. A little bird told me Ryan manifested tonight!”

“Wait, what?” Shane asks, closing the door to the living room. “What do you mean, he manifested?”

“He used the demon’s powers, didn’t he?” Bloody Mary asks.

“Yeah,” Shane slowly says. “He threw Eugene across the ground. What do you mean, demon?”

“You don’t think it’s simply a ghost possessing him, do you, Shane?” Bloody Mary coos. “It’s a demon. More specifically, Inferus, as far as sources tell me.”

Ghost is one thing. Demon is another. But a demon with a concrete name doesn’t sound well.

“Inferus?” Shane asks. “What kinda name is that?”

“It means ‘low’,” she translates. “It’s known for having no face or distinguishable features. It’s merely a shadow, that crawls on the walls and ceiling, stalking its victim and awakening anxiety until the victim has been drained of so much of energy that it’s able to possess them easily.”

Shane swallows. “I have a demon in my house?” he asks.

“No worries, it can’t harm ya,” Bloody Mary assures.

“Yeah, about that,” Shane says. “Why does my touch repel it?”

“You don’t know?” Bloody Mary asks. “Shane, you’re – “

The line suddenly breaks, and Shane looks at his phone, seeing that there’s no connection all of a sudden. The door creaks open behind Shane, and Shane’s heart stutters in his chest.

Ryan is standing there, his shoulders slumped. Shane stares at him, his heartbeat quickening though he remembers what Bloody Mary said. The demon can’t hurt him.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t throw stuff at him. Or make Ryan stab him. Or other things that results in permanent injury or death.

“Ryan?” Shane calls out. “Come on, Ryan, resist it.”

Ryan doesn’t answer.

“This isn’t you,” Shane continues, lower, his eyes quickly flickering around the living room to make sure there’s nothing in the room that can seriously hurt him. The clock says 3:03.

Now, two things happen:

  1.   Shane catches Ryan’s reflection in a mirror, and to his absolute horror, the image isn’t anything like the one Shane can see in front of him. In the mirror Ryan’s neck, hair, ears and the side of his cheek is completely black. Despite the rooms being dark, the blackness of Ryan and the darkness of the room still has a startling contrast. Like one is not like the other and for the first time, Shane understands how the darkness of demons isn’t just the absence of the light. It’s true darkness.
  2.     Shane gets absolutely pissed.



“Hello, dickface,” he snarls. “Glad to see you finally showing your face. Get it? Because you don’t have one.”

The Ryan in front of him keeps glaring, but the reflection in the mirror starts tilting its neck. 

“Now, we can both agree that you don’t like me, and I don’t like you,” Shane continues. “I don’t really know what you want and frankly, I don’t care. I just need you to go home, okay? Go back to Hell, Inferus.”

Ryan keeps staring at him, and Shane lifts his hands, knowing that his touch will make the demon pull back, but as Shane moves to lunge, the creature –because that voice doesn’t belong to Ryan, that’s for sure– whispers: “Not. Without. Him.”

Shane’s hands come down hard on Ryan’s cheeks, and they sting like the way cold does when it’s really bad. He’s so angry, it’s crazy, but as soon as his hands come into contact with Ryan, Ryan’s eyes roll back, but this time Shane knows he’s going to drop, and catches him in good time.

Shane stands there holding his friend for a bit, wondering how this is his life, but Ryan is made of pure muscle so it isn’t long before Shane’s shoulders and arms start aching and he starts dragging Ryan’s body towards the bed.

He drops Ryan on the bed, and watches him intently for impending creepiness. When  Shane checks his watch, it’s 3:10 and he deems it safe to leave Ryan. 

He goes to brush his teeth and change into a pajamas, and by the time he’s back, Ryan has woken up. He’s sitting up, looking confused and a little groggy.

“Welcome back,” Shane says as cheerfully as he can.

“Where were you?” Ryan asks.

“I was brushing my teeth,” Shane gently lets him know.  “You should go do it too.”

Ryan stares at him for a moment, before standing up and leaving the room.

“There’s an extra toothbrush in the cabinet,” Shane lets him know.

He hears the crackling sound of the wrapper being opened and a moment after, Ryan is brushing his teeth. Teeth that had always been too big for his mouth.

Shane realizes his hands are shaking. God. Is Ryan really going to…?

No. Ryan Bergara isn’t finished in this world yet.

Shane would make sure of that.

He grabs their phones and gets an extra charger, knowing Ryan is probably too tired to think about charging his. It’s so terribly mundane, to be remembering to charge your phone right after a demon told you that it’d drag your friend to Hell where he would suffer for all eternity.

The sound of a shower comes on, and Shane goes through his e-mails. And he sees one from Bloody Mary.

_ Hello Shane. You got one prissy demon, huh? As I was saying I sensed a clear anti-demonic aura around you the first time I met you, an aura I’ve only seen around people who’ve been blessed by something anti-demonic. Don’t ask me what blessed you; our conversation shows that you weren’t even aware of it, though you should’ve noticed by now how little the demon can do against you. The best way for you to suppress the demon and even weaken it until it’s too tired to fight against an exorcism is to  _ _ stay close to Ryan _ _. _

_ Fluid in this case is the best way to repel it. Jesus was baptized in water, water is blessed to make holy water, and it’s all because water, in Christianity, represents the spiritual cleansing that comes with the acceptance of God's offer of salvation. Because Inferus is a fallen angel, you will have to use the water that comes from your own body. Spit, blood, semen, anything that can go inside Ryan. Only when Ryan can stay alone for more than five hours without manifesting, can you try risking another exorcism. Good luck, boys! _

He hears the door open, and sees Ryan standing there, looking a little hesitant. Shane puts his phone down, and gently orders: “Come here.”

Ryan walks to Shane’s bed, and stiffly gets underneath the covers.

“What were you reading?” Ryan asks, after having cleared his throat.

“Bloody Mary replied,” Shane says. “She says there’s a way to weaken the demon so it won’t resist an exorcism.”

“Demon?” Ryan exclaims, sitting up and maybe Shane shouldn’t have said that right after Ryan manifested.

“Inferus,” Shane says. “The faceless. A shadow shaped like a human and pretends it’s Spiderman and stuff.”

The corners of Ryan’s mouth a bending downwards. “Oh God,” Ryan whispers.

“Hey, relax,” Shane says.

“Fuck you, how am I supposed to relax?” Ryan shouts. “There’s a fucking d-demon inside me! It’s ten times worse than a ghost!”

“I know,” Shane asking, remembering back to the Annelise Michel-case. Superhuman strength, starvation, seizures, knowing stuff nobody could possibly know.

Such as what Sara was up to in New York…

“Well, what can we do about it?” Ryan asks.

Shane hands Ryan the phone because that’s easier than explaining, and Ryan unlocks it, quickly reading the e-mail through.

“Wait, what?” Ryan asks, his eyes widening as he looks at the phone. “ _ You’re _ anti-demonic?”

Shane knows what’s going to happen before Ryan’s eyes even start crinkling. The laughter is loud and obnoxious, and as Shane looks at him, he feels like everything is suddenly less serious. Ryan is laughing, his eyes full of amusement and it’s impossible to feel like everything sucks when he laughs like that. And honestly, the thought of kissing Ryan now seems so much more approachable and delightful than it seemed minutes ago. 

“I never would’ve guessed,” Ryan says when his laughter has settled.

“Me neither,” Shane answers.

Ryan swallows, his eyes big. There’s a question in the air he’s afraid to ask, so Shane does it for him: “Let me end it with Sara tomorrow, and then we can deal with when to… handle this problem.”

Ryan swallows again and nods quickly. He looks away, chewing on his lips.

“Try to sleep, yeah?” Shane suggests, though he can feel how tense Ryan’s body is.

Ryan shakily inhales. “I-I’m afraid I won’t wake up. I’m afraid it’s going to be that thing that does.”

“Hey,” Shane says, nudging closer. “I’m here.”

Ryan smiles a little. “Yeah, what could be worse for the demon than waking up with ten foot limbs curled around it?”

Shane ignores him, and draws Ryan into a kiss. It’s been a long day and Ryan’s response is sluggish, but at least he’s responding. And like that, they fall asleep.

\----

“Shane.”

Shane wrinkles his nose.

“Shaaaaaaaane.”

The first thing Shane sees is Ryan’s face in front of him, eyes closed and breathing deeply. He’s sleeping besides Shane on his bed, which means -

Shane tries to jump off the bed, but finds himself paralyzed.

“W-What?” Shane says. “Ryan! Ryan, wake up!”

“He won’t wake up,” the smooth voice says, ambiguous of sex. “Just like you won’t be able to move.”

“Who are you?” Shane asks, trying to get up anyways. “Did you drug us?”

“Shaaaaaaane, what did Bloody Mary say about intellectualizing too much?” the voice asks.

Shane stops struggling, and exhales deeply. “How long have you been in here?” he asks instead.

It’s silence for a moment, and then one cool hand lies on his shoulder. “I’ve been walking beside you your whole life, Shane,” the voice says. “And you’ve kept me more active these past years than your entire life.”

“What?” Shane asks, but the pieces are starting to come together and he has the answer on the tip of his tongue. “Prove it.”

“When you were ten years old, you fell into a lake and your mother jumped in to save you,” the voice answers. “Or at least that’s how you prefer to remember it. Told yourself that was the truth for so long you actually ended up believing it.”

Shane closes his eyes, the words a jab in his heart. Right. He had really… forgot.

“Stay away from Ryan Bergara,” the voice urges. “You can try and glue yourself to his side, but as soon as he’s left alone he’s a goner. You don’t want more Fathers to get hurt, do you?”

“Bloody Mary – “

“Is a Voodoo Queen. She can’t disband anything demonic, she’s a neutral entity.”

“No,” Shane says, feeling blood rush into his head and his eyes get watery. “Ryan isn’t going to become dog food for some fucking demon – “

“Not just any demon.  _ Inferus _ ,” the voice hisses. “No priest can take that on with the strength it has now, leeching energies off this kid.”

“Bullshit, there must be a way, this can’t have been the first time – “

“It isn’t. It won’t be. And the less people know about it, the better. The fear of demons is what will make people much more vulnerable.”

No. No. Poor Ryan.

“The kid has had a target on his forehead since he was a toddler,” the voice says, softer. “Now, let him go. You can’t save him.”

“No,” Shane growls. “I’m not just going to let him die. Forget about it.”

“As you will,” the voice answers, and it fades away.

\----

“Hey, Sasquatch. Wake up already.”

Shane opens his eyes, squinting. The light is dull in the apartment, the sounds of the streets are filling the bedroom and it’s humid despite how Ryan has opened a window. Shane inhales, and sits up.

“Sweet dreams?” Ryan asks, offering Shane a cup of coffee.

Shane rubs his eyes, a little disoriented. “Weird dream, rather,” Shane yawns, looking up at Ryan. “You look better.”

Ryan smiles a little shyly. “I feel better too,” he says. “Hey Shane. I… I’ve been thinking, and I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me all this time,” he starts and he says it in that rare genuine voice. He bites his lip. “You’ve supported me more during all of this than any other person, despite not originally believing in any of this, and I just wanna say that no matter what happens, I won’t ask you of something that you haven’t already done.”

Shane is left there, squinting a little bit at Ryan’s blurry figure, before he asks: “Can you hand me my glasses?”

There’s the quiet sound of Ryan rounding the bed, and then Shane’s glasses are handed to him. “What is that supposed to mean?” Shane asks, now that he can see Ryan.

Ryan ducks his head a little bit. “I’m not going to make you have sex with me,” Ryan admits. “I mean… That’s just too much, I can’t possibly ask you that and have a clear conscience. So I’m not. Asking you, I mean.”

Shane stares at him. “Ryan,” he says, a little incredulous. “You’re one of my best friends, if not the best. If I have to put my dick inside you for you to live, that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Still – “

“No. I’m not listening to this again,” Shane says and stands up, sipping from his coffee.

“Right,” Ryan says, looking down even as his cheeks heat up. “Wait, again?”

“I’m showering!”

\----

The ride on the bus is quiet yet peaceful. They’re sitting besides each other, having at some point remembered that the filming of the post mortem is today, and they’re hurriedly scrolling their Facebook and Instagram pages, screenshotting comments and questions.

They get off in front of Buzzfeed offices, and walk besides each other. Shane is shooting Ryan looks, and Ryan is gnawing nervously on his lip.

“Look, I’m going to talk to Sara and then we’ll get this… whole thing figured out, okay?”

Ryan nods a little quickly. “Okay. If you’re really sure.”

“Hey,” Shane stops in front of the staff entrance. “I am. We’re going to fix this, okay?”

Ryan meets his eyes, and they walk inside.

\----

“Hey, dude,” Shane can hear behind him, and he takes his headphones off.

Eugene is standing behind Ryan, his arms crossed, and wide-eyed Ryan takes his headphones off too, looking up at him.

“Uh, yeah?” Ryan asks.

“Did you let your inner beast go yesterday night and throw me across the yard?”

Ryan frowns at him, a nervous grin forming on his face. “N-no? Man, are you alright?”

Uh oh. 

“Sure about that?” Eugene asks.

“Yeah, uh, about that,” Shane breaks in, ”I tried you to make you leave several times.”

“Man, this is insane!” Eugene exclaims, before quickly looking around and lowering his voice: “I never thought I’d say this, but …” He points dramatically at Ryan. “I’m not sure whether I feel safe when I know that not only is a demon present, but no one except fucking Shane can keep it in tow. Don’t you have to help Kelsey in like an hour?”

Shane makes a face. “Oh. Yeah.”

Eugene stands there, glaring accusingly at them until Ryan says: “I have an idea.”

\----

“Are you sure about this?” Shane asks, already making a hole in the bag of salt.

“Positive,” Ryan answers. “I ate, I peed, and I know I have to get through these emails before the post-mortem anyway.”

“Okay,” Shane reluctantly agrees, and dips the bag of salt. Salt pours out and Shane rounds the couch with it, making a ring around it.

Eugene, Jen, Andrew and Steven are all watching, looking various kinds of concerned.

“Are you sure that’s going to work?” Steven asks, squinting at the ring. “I mean, Ryan’s demon seems a tiny bit stronger than the ones mentioned at Ouija-sessions.”

“I’ll be taking suggestions as soon as you make up something better,” Shane says. “Alright, Ryan, try to get out.”

“No,” Ryan incredulously breaks out. “Why would I?”

“To see if it works,” Eugene says.

“Yes, but what if it works?” Ryan asks.

“That’s a good thing?”

“No, that’d make it very real that I have a demon inside me, Eugene,” Ryan snaps.

“I can’t help you black out every time Inferus comes out to play,” Eugene says. “I was thrown through the air.”

“Well, you were pretty annoying,” Shane grumbles.

Ryan pouts and puts his computer on the couch before standing up and stepping towards the ring of salt.

“Wait, who says I can’t step over it because I tell myself I can’t?” Ryan asks.

Shane rolls his eyes, before grabbing Ryan around the wrist, and pulling him forwards.

Only for Ryan to freeze up and twist while standing, like he’s electrocuted. He sways and Shane tugs at him again and again Ryan freezes and twists, averting leaving the circle.

Shane is about to try again, when Ryan pulls his hand back. “Dude stop, that feels like ten dizzy spells at once.”

“I guess it’s working, then,” Jen says. “If you feel too disoriented to move.”

“I can  _ finally _ work in peace,” Eugene exclaims in theatrical relief.

\---

When Shane gets back with a vacuum cleaner, Ryan is looking a little pale. It took longer with Kelsey than anticipated, but Shane caught Sara on the way and thought he’d grab his chance to hash it out. She looked a little cried out, but her gaze was resolute and strong when she listened to what he said. He knows she had probably worked out his feelings before himself, like always, because she didn’t look surprised when he asked her to pursue a relationship with the guy in New York. But they agree to stay friends, and when she smiles at him, he knows she means it.

Shane doesn’t say anything outloud, only starts vacuuming up the salt.

Ryan closes his laptop. “We’re leaving in ten days by the way.”

Shane frowns. “I thought we started shooting in fourteen days?”

“Yeah, but these plane tickets were on sale and it would really help our budget,” Ryan briefly explains, pausing for a moment before stepping out from the circle. With a sigh of relief, he asks Shane: “Is that alright with you?”

“Sure,” Shane replies, mentally going through a list of things he will have to wrap up a faster. “So… how do you feel?”

“Oh, good, Helen messaged me and asked me what was up,” Ryan says. “I said I was fine and excluded the fact that I’m locked in a circle of goddamn salt because I’m a demon and my colleagues are afraid to share their workspace with me!”

Shane makes a face. “Overthinking much, are we?”

Ryan glares at him.

“Look, if they were really that scared of you – if your  _ problem _ mattered more than your friendship – they would’ve done a little bit more than nagging you.”

“Such as what?” Ryan asks. “Calling a priest already didn’t work, and apparently the only thing that does work is swapping body fluids!”

Shane throws out his hands, frustration overwhelming his judgment for a second. “Well, what the Hell do you want me to do, Ryan?” he snaps. “I’m trying my best here!”

Ryan looks like he’s going to shout back, but actually meets Shane’s eyes and visibly deflates. “I know,” he mumbles. “You’ve done even more than I have. I’m sorry.”

“Look, you’re frustrated,” Shane says.

“It’s not just that,” Ryan says. “I know stuff, Shane, about people and it’s stuff I’d rather not know about.”

Shane stares at him. “Such as New York?”

Ryan sighs and closes his eyes. “I thought you knew, I thought… I assumed if I knew, you had probably told me and I slipped up – “

“It’s okay,” Shane interrupts a little sharply. “Don’t start blaming yourself for what people have been up to.”

Ryan stares heavily at him, before reluctantly nodding.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I feel like this chapter pretty much explains why this work was tagged dubious consent. It may seem like the Fuck or Die/Fuck your friend or they will die-trope, but it is indicated to the characters that there are other means besides intercourse that make repelling Inferus possible. For multiple reasons, though, the characters are not focusing on finding alternatives. Therefore not non-con, I guess?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan searches his eyes, and gradually something soft comes in over them. “You know,” he says, correcting Shane’s hair in a distant yet fond way, “have you even ever tried… You know, with a guy?”
> 
> “Nah,” Shane says.
> 
> Ryan accepts this with a nod. “Just, uh… tell me if … if I do something that doesn’t …”

The final postmortem before the “big sleep” as Ryan calls it goes well. As usual Shane has picked the questions he knew would agitate Ryan the most, and Ryan brings up ghosts with no explanation whatsoever just to annoy Shane. He still laughs at Shane’s dumb jokes, and has thrown in an odd theory about orbs that leaves Shane speechless. Ryan cackles like the evil gremlin he is when he sees Shane’s face twist together in incredulousness, but it makes Shane feel like things are going back to normal a little bit.

The only thing that’s different is that when the crew starts packing up, neither Ryan nor Shane are making a move to follow. They stay and keep chatting about the case despite how there were manuscripts to correct and videos to edit. Shane sits on the table; still holding his cup even though it’s empty, and Ryan stays in the chair, his body strung out like a bow, a slip of his stomach showing.

“Does nothing intrigue you?” Ryan cries out, kicking Shane’s foot that is still somehow touching the ground.

“Of course it intrigues me, but, you know, it’s unsolved and there’s no reason to waste more time looking into it,” Shane says, making his voice as cocky as possible.

“Oh my god,” Ryan groans, rolling his eyes. “So you haven’t wondered at all when I even caught this demon?”

“No,” Shane answers. “All there is to wonder about is what we’re going to do about it now.”

Ryan is about to argue back, when he suddenly seems to think of something and starts wheezing. “Wait, is this you …?”

Immediately Shane realizes what he just indicated. “No!” he denies, but then quickly thinks it over and shrugs. “But I mean…”

They quiet for a moment, meeting each other’s eyes. This is probably their loophole. The part where they… do something… about the information they have. After all, the clock is ticking and the demon isn’t going to wait for them to dare and kiss each other.  

Ryan inhales deeply, before saying: “Stay where you are.”

Having said that more like an order, he goes to the door and locks it.

Much slower he walks back towards Shane, still sitting on the table and only now is Shane becoming aware of how his legs are spread, how his posture is a little slumped and how it automatically straightens as Ryan comes closer.

Still, Ryan nears him like Shane is some kind of dangerous animal, until he’s finally standing in between Shane’s legs.

He puts a warm hand on Shane’s cheek, meeting Shane’s glance before promptly crumbling in giggles, looking away in awkwardness.

“God, this is so weird,” he says, chuckling humorlessly.

He looks away, and Shane puts his hand on the back of Ryan’s neck. “Why are you weirded out by this? It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”

“Yeah, but…” Ryan blinks a little quickly. “You kinda had to be the instigator after rejecting me at the club.”

“It wasn’t a rejection,” Shane says. “I… so much just happened that day.”

“Yeah…” Ryan sighs. “I get it. I probably would’ve found it weird too if you just kissed me one day.”

Shane raises his brows gradually. “What. You have wanted to for a while?”

Ryan blinks quickly, looking nervous like he’s been called out, before he bites his lip and admits: “I don’t know. It felt like a natural thing to do at the time.” He rubs his eye. “But it also felt natural to suck strangers’ dicks yesterday even though that’s not usually something I  _ do _ .”

Shane lifts a brow. “’Dicks’? As in plural?”

Ryan lowers his gaze, neck tensing underneath Shane’s hand. “I did it before you came too,” he says, a little shamefully.

“Well, did you at least eat a breath mint or something before kissing me?” Shane says, trying to make light of the situation.

“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan says a little half-heartedly. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m not feeling like myself, and you’re messing around.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Shane admits and it’s supposed to sound frustrated, but it comes out a little too low and a little too unsure.

Ryan searches his eyes, and gradually something soft comes in over them. “You know,” he says, correcting Shane’s hair in a distant yet fond way, “have you even ever tried… You know, with a guy?”

“Nah,” Shane says.

Ryan accepts this with a nod. “Just, uh… tell me if … if I do something that doesn’t …”

“I know,” Shane cuts him off because Ryan trying to be sensitive towards Shane is an oddly melancholic thing to see.

Ryan puts his hand back on Shane’s cheek, and lets his gaze rest in Shane’s as he leans in. His lips are soft but a little dry. Shane can tell he’s licked them at some point, but he isn’t completely sure when.

It does definitely feel weirder when Ryan instigates the kiss, that’s for sure. The filthy hunger Shane tasted at the bar is gone, replaced with a sweet sort of rain.

“Can you…” Ryan whispers against Shane’s lips, “not … hold my neck? It’s making me feel a little queasy.”

“Demon queasy or regular queasy,” Shane asks.

“Both, I think.” Ryan pulls away, and neatly places Shane’s hands on the table.

“Just try not to stab me,” Shane says, and he can’t help but smile and even though Shane can tell Ryan doesn’t think it’s funny, he still smiles back. Like always. “I’m gonna keep my hands to myself, then.”

“A hard task, isn’t it?” Ryan asks and kisses Shane before he gets to answer. This kiss is far more insistent, and more wanting and Shane finds himself melting into it as Ryan deepens it.

Ryan was right about his mouth being God’s gift. He takes control of the kiss, but isn’t too aggressive. Thankfully he isn’t a wet kisser, which Shane can always appreciate, but his hands are all over Shane, brushing through his hair, knotting around the back of his neck and finally settling on Shane’s cheeks. Shane feels his body gradually warm up but not in an aroused way. Almost like he’s exercising, and it doesn’t help that Ryan is only getting closer, holding Shane tighter until Shane finds himself being pushed down to lie on the table. Ryan doesn’t let go of him at any point, and now Shane’s ears are burning, his eyes are watering.

“Ryan?” Shane whispers, and Ryan rumbles back at him, moving down to kiss Shane’s neck, slowly and so gently Shane has to quiver. It makes his dick harden, especially when Ryan finds the sensitive spot in the hollow of Shane’s collarbones.

Ryan’s fingers are slipping underneath his shirt, burning and feeling so foreign that it feels almost wrong.

But only almost.

Ryan’s fingers slip higher and Shane gasps, his hands clasping the edges of the table. Shane can feel Ryan’s knee in-between his thighs, and quickly he wonders whether Ryan can feel him hardening.

“Can I take your shirt off?” Ryan whispers.

“Not like you’re not groping my chest anyway,” Shane responds hoarsely and Ryan replies with a devilish grin, before he slides Shane’s shirt up to his armpits.

“What are you – Ah-ahn – “

Ryan’s lips are clasped tight around one of Shane’s nipple, and it feels almost too much. It’s not a sensation he’s unused to, previous lovers having strayed down there once or twice, but together with Ryan’s hands tightening on his chest, it feels weird altogether.

“Dude, what are you doing?” he groans. “I don’t have any boobs.”

“Wow, I hadn’t noticed that,” Ryan answers a little dryly, before biting his lip. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I just don’t understand why you have to,” Shane admits.

Ryan shrugs a little awkward. “I-I just want to make it good for you, at least. Now that you have to.”

Shane looks at him, and he guesses it makes sense. Of course Ryan would develop a sense of guilt about Shane doing this, and sure if Shane was in Ryan’s position he probably would’ve tried to make it good too. Especially if he had experience from precious lovers, and Ryan didn’t.

“It feels good,” Shane says. “Just not so hard.”

Ryan nods a little seriously, even as he blushes. Embarrassed he hides his face in Shane’s chest.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Shane says, feeling bad now. “Just… go on.”

Ryan giggles. “It’s weird now.”

Shane’s hands, which are still clasping the edges of the table, let go seemingly without his consent. He cups Ryan’s cheek, and runs his fingers through his hair, going for reassuring and Ryan’s big eyes finally meet his.

“Try kissing me again,” Shane suggests, and Ryan blinks, before turning to kiss the back of Shane’s hand. The gesture is surprisingly sweet, Ryan’s eyes lowered as he does it.

“Come up here,” Shane says. “Climb me like a tree.”

“It actually almost feels like it,” Ryan ponders, groaning as he crawls up Shane’s body again. He leans in to kiss him, but Shane suddenly realizes something.

“Wait, am I bottoming?” Shane asks. “’C-Cause I’m not sure if I’m ready for that.”

“No need to worry, big guy,” Ryan says, and his voice has gone ridiculously husky and deep. “Today I’m going to be doing all the work.”

He kisses Shane again, this time more hungry and for a moment Shane forgets his question, as the kiss deepens. Ryan’s tongue slips in-between Shane’s lips, and Shane isn’t the biggest fan of French kissing but this feels alright, almost hot actually.

But this time Ryan’s knee is starting to grind at Shane’s bulge, and he greedily swallows the moan slipping past Shane’s lips.

Ryan grinds harder, and Shane can feel his hands start to shake on the table, and he suddenly feels confined in his jeans and shirt. Ryan’s hot body on top of his doesn’t help, because it’s heavy and hard in a way a girl’s just isn’t.

Finally, Shane has to move away from the kiss, but Ryan just continues sucking at his neck like some damn leech. He tugs at Shane’s shirt and so Shane lifts his arms. Ryan shucks it off. The table feels too cold against Shane’s naked skin.

“Ryan,” Shane whispers, feeling a little nervous.

“I’ve got you,” Ryan whispers back, and he slides down to Shane’s chest again, and this time his mouth is just right around Shane’s nipple, drawing the most delicious kind of pleasure from a place Shane hadn’t really known could feel so good.

“Ryan,” Shane moans. Ryan circles his nipple with his tongue.

The response almost feels like a purr and Shane thrusts his hips, needing more friction, but Ryan stills.

“Keep still,” he growls. “Keep your hands on the table.”

“Yes, Sir,” Shane replies, giggling in shock. His fingers clasp the table edge again, and he can feel more than hear Ryan’s sigh against his skin.

Then Ryan’s hands are coming down to unbutton Shane’s jeans. He moves down Shane’s body as he wrestles the jeans off Shane’s hips.

“You okay up there, big guy?” Ryan asks, even as his hand comes down to rub Shane’s bulge.

“Y-Yeah.” Shane’s legs are shaking, and it feels like such a long time ago he was this turned on. He can’t remember when he was last touched like this, if he ever really was, so used to giving, and it doesn’t matter, because now Ryan is drawing Shane out of his underwear.

“Oh god,” Shane says, partly because of the sensation and partly because this whole situation is so absurdly far away from what he ever imagined he would do.

“You don’t have to look if it…” Ryan doesn’t finish the sentence, but Shane knows how the sentence is going to end. ‘If it ruins it for you, if you realize you’re about to get blown by a guy’ comes to mind.

And Shane realizes he has been looking at the ceiling for a while now, and honestly? He’s not sure he wants to see Ryan with his cock in his hand. He’s worried he might start recalling the image while watching Ryan narrate some murder on camera.

A hot lick makes Shane clench his eyes together, calling him back to reality.

Another comes and before Shane knows it, his cock is in Ryan’s mouth. The suction is mild, but at this point it doesn’t take a lot. Shane’s toes are crumbling in his sneakers, the rubber heels squeaking against vinyl floor and it feels so good and so fucking wrong at the same time.

Ryan doesn’t make any sound, and if Shane tries hard enough, ignores that the hand holding him is too big, he can imagine a girl doing this.

Ryan takes Shane’s cock deeper, his mouth hot and wet. His tongue covers the bottom front row of his teeth, and together with the suction, and how far down he’s willing to take Shane…

Shane’s moan is way too loud, and Ryan squeezes his hip in warning, even as he starts to stroke Shane with his hand.

And well, Ryan was right when he said his mouth was God’s gift, because the combination of the intensity of the suction, his wet, ever moving tongue and his relentless hand brings Shane right to the edge.

“Ryan, I’m coming,” Shane whispers, which makes Ryan take Shane’s cock as deep into his throat as possible.

A strangled grunt exits Shane’s throat as he cums, hot and wet down Ryan’s throat. Ryan  _ swallows _ , and it’s so good it hurts, and Shane has to bite his lip to keep the sounds down.

Ryan pulls his mouth off him, Shane’s dick wet and exposed, before Ryan tugs him away and even goes as far as zipping and buttoning his pants. Shane’s breathing is uneven and quick. He can hear people outside talking as the official lunch hour actually begins. “I swear,” he says, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “All the stupid shit you make me do.”

He doesn’t hear any laugh, and when he looks up, he sees Ryan has frozen, his hands on his mouth, holding it shut, eyes wide.

And the voice he heard the same night, says: “Go. Lock the door, and don’t come back.”

Ryan blinks and the white of his eyes and his irises turn jet black.

Shane doesn’t need another cue. He jumps up from the table and takes five long steps to the door, opening it and slamming it shut just as he sees the bookshelves around Ryan start to shake, the figure on top falling down and hitting the ground.

Thankfully, Shane’s keys are in his pocket, and with shaking hands he locks the door.

He’s sweating, heart racing in his chest and he wonders what the Hell just happened, right before the door starts to rattle.

“Go.”

Shane does as the voice tells him to, and he turns around and walks away.

\----

At lunch break, Shane’s skin is crawling and the thought of letting Ryan suck him again honestly sickens him. It’s not the act in itself, it’s just the reason why.

So he finds the number Bloody Mary sent him and dials it, waiting in nervous silence for her to pick up.  

There has to be another way out of it.

“Bhandal household,” an older female voice greets once the phone has been picked up.

“Hey, it’s uh… Shane…”

“Yes?”

“Bloody Mary gave me this number in case something really bad happened, and I….”

“Mary?” the woman repeats. “I told that woman that we weren’t interested in more cases.”

“Wait, please,” Shane says, before she can hang up. “Please. My friend has been possessed for almost a week, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Call a priest.”

“He nearly gave the priest a heart attack,” Shane says. “Just… choked him without even moving. It’s a demon, it’s called Inferus, you know, the faceless?”

The woman does go silent at that. “Alright,” she says. “We’ll listen to your case, but don’t tell anybody we’re helping you, okay?”

“Okay,” Shane says, with a sigh of relief. “When can we talk?”

“We live 20 miles from Los Angeles,” the woman said. “Bring your friend, and additional witnesses. I’ll text you the address.”

“How many?”

“Three will do,” she replies. “I have to go now.”

“Okay, thank you so much.”

She hangs up, and Shane breathes out in relief.

“So, who were you talking to?”

He jumps. “Steven!” he snaps.

Steven grins at him. “Hey, man, do I smell ghost hunting?”

Shane shakes his head and heads back towards the room where he left Ryan.

“Can I come?” Steven asks. “Can we make a video out of it? Seriously, the demand for a worth it-crossover is really big, and even if it isn’t a crossover per se, I think the fans would still – “

“Steven, you can come, but we can’t make a video out of it. Now be quiet.” Shane clears his throat and ta. “Ryan?”

“Shane?” Ryan calls back. “What the Hell, man, why did you lock me into a room?”

Shane lifts a brow. “You don’t remember what happened, buddy?”

“No?” Ryan questions. “Let me out, man, I’m starving.”

Perking up, Shane unlocks the door and Ryan grins at him as soon as the door opens.

“What’s for lunch today?” Ryan asks, a little giddy as he walks out of the room. Shane looks at him critically, but to the contrary of his suspicions Ryan looks better than he did before they stepped into the room. His eyes have become a little brighter, his cheeks are flushed and the mere fact that Ryan is hungry?

Shane has been with Ryan almost 24/7 and he hasn’t seen Ryan eat since the popcorn, which he threw up.

“Oh my God, my body is so sore,” Ryan groans as he stretches. “Seriously, I could eat a cow.”

“Well, it’s veggie day,” Steven cheerfully replies, because Ryan is a fond meat eater, but it doesn’t stop him.

He fills up two plates of food, and while Shane has lost his appetite, he’s entertained just by watching Ryan stuff his face. They’re eating with Steven and Andrew who at some point became food snobs, and decided Buzzfeed’s cafeteria food wasn’t good enough for them, despite it being free everything Thursday. People are laughing and chatting around them, and as Ryan inhales his food and Steven spiels about how fun they had at the bar last night after Ryan and Shane left, and Shane pretty much almost feels like himself.

“By the way, how are you handling the whole possession thing?” Steven asks, and Ryan promptly fills his mouth with almond-stuffed olives, forcing Shane to answer.

“We are looking for alternatives at the moment,” Shane answers, not wanting to let any information about the woman slip.

Ryan narrows his eyes at him, slowly chewing his food.

“Alternatives for what?” Andrew asks.

“The options we’ve got so far,” Shane vaguely answers, picking up a carrot and eating it.

“Oh, by the way, Ryan, we’ll be driving past your neighborhood tonight,” Steven says, waving a piece of tomato with his fork. “Do you want us to drive past your parents to get something for you?”

Andrew groans but Ryan quickly chews his food and asks Steven to pick up a bag of clothes he forgot there while on vacation. Andrew is shooting Steven small glares, and Shane suspects that’s not everything there is to it. The lunch break goes on, and Ryan empties his two plates and then asks them if they’re going to finish the rest of theirs, not waiting for an answer before he shovels their food into his mouth. Shane feels good about it; he genuinely hasn’t seen Ryan consume any food since the handful of popcorn he threw up anyway. Is this a sign that Ryan is getting better?

“Heya,” someone greets and Shane turns his head, not missing Ryan grabbing for his drink and gulping it down.

“Hey, Kelsey,” Shane greets, trying not to overthink how stiff and smooth her skin is despite the size of her smile, which is so weird because he hasn’t ever known her any other way. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if you could help me tomorrow afternoon,” she states. “If you’re not to busy editing the Q&A.”

Shane looks at Ryan, who is looking at a poor intern’s half-filled plate. “I mean, if the both of us edit I bet we could be free. What do you need?”

“She’s gonna put us in another Couple video,” Ryan says. “That’s false advertising, Kelsey.”

Kelsey lifts a brow. “Wait, I put you in a couple’s video?” she asks.

“You’re going to publish it tomorrow. The one with the pigments, right?” Ryan asks, his voice monotone.

Kelsey laughs, but Shane can pick up a nervous undertone. “No, I’m not. Seriously, it’s just a regular – “

“Are you claiming I’m lying?” Ryan interrupts, something sharp in his voice as he tilts his head and looks at her.

“Alright,” she exclaims, downright nervously smiling. “I’m sorry. I was going to.”

Shane reaches over, and puts his hand on Ryan’s knee underneath the table, squeezing it.

Ryan freezes, before shaking his head. “I mean, if you hypothetically did this,” he says, quickly summoning a fake grin to ease the air a little bit. “It’d be kinda inappropriate, considering Shane just broke up with his girlfriend, you know?”

Kelsey’s smile drops right away, and Shane groans on the inside. He understands that it would’ve gotten out at some point, but he had hoped he would get a little more time.

“Oh, Shane, I’m so sorry,” Kelsey said. “It was supposed to be something fun, I didn’t mean to – “

“You can just change the title of the video,” Shane interrupts, keeping his voice kind. “That way it doesn’t outright say we’re a couple and you can keep the footage.”

“Fine,” she says, but because she’s Kelsey she pushes it. “Can you still help me out later?”

“Sure,” Shane answers before Ryan gets to open his mouth. “Send an intern when the set is ready.”

She smiles brilliantly at them, before leaving.

“Woah, man, that was kinda harsh,” Andrew says.

“Will you let go of my knee now?” Ryan says. “Yeah, it was harsh, but it also isn’t nice to put us in a Couple video without asking us first. How she depicts us affects our show as well, and besides, what would Sara think?”

His arguments are reasonable, but Shane suspects it’s not only that. He leaves it alone though, and when the lunch break ends, he doesn’t trust Ryan enough to go get candy on his own.  Also he’s worried Ryan might try to hunt the Tasty crew down.

Ryan ends up bringing a big bag back, throwing in some of Shane’s favorite mini-chocolate bars for bribery purposes, and starts chewing obnoxiously at a long piece of wine gum when they sit down to edit, insistently pushing the bag of candy towards Shane a couple of times.

Shane can’t stay mad at him (but he does text the old Test Friends crew and tells them they need to go  _ today _ ) and ends up eating some of the candy, sipping at his water as he types out a small email to the animators, attaching the text of the Hot Daga episode.

“So these people,” Ryan says, rolling around to face him a few hours later. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Shane answers. At this point he has already gotten Daysha, Maycie and Jen on board, and Jen is willing to use her car. “It’s for us to find out, I guess.”

Ryan nods. “You know, I do feel a lot better.”

“Oh the three plates of food didn’t give anything away,” Shane sarcastically answers, but he smiles.

Ryan visibly hesitates, fiddling with his pen. “Are you okay?”

Shane lifts a brow “What do you mean?

“I blacked out for a moment,” Ryan says, awkwardly scratching his neck. “And the first thing you did was call that number afterwards.”

“Oh,” Shane remembers. “Yeah, you started looking real sick and something told me to get out of there. I don’t know, Ryan, it’s not that I mind a whole lot, but I have to say, I’m worried where it’s heading if we keep doing it.”

Ryan looks up at him through his lashes, hands no longer fiddling with his pen. “I see,” he says.

There’s something odd in his voice, but it’s at this point Jen drops by and tells them she’s ready to go. Ryan looks confused but packs his bags without question. Daysha and Maycie are waiting in the parking lot, bright and excited.

Maycie starts snapchatting as they start to drive.

“The Test Friends are back together!” Jen exclaims, and Shane makes a stupid face at the camera. Ryan grins, and Daysha makes some peace signs.

They turn up the music, and open the windows. The sun is starting to set, but the winds are warm in their faces, and it’s odd how everything feels like it’s going to be alright even though this is yet another shot in the dark.

Shane, who sits in the middle backseat, shoots Ryan a glance and finds Ryan leaned back, relaxed with his eyes closed.

He senses Shane looking at him, and he opens his eyes. He smiles, small and crooked.

“You’re way too relaxed for someone who’s going to get exorcised in a place you don’t even know,” Shane notices.

“I guess,” Ryan replies, his smile turning impossibly soft as he meets Shane’s eyes, “I just feel safe in your hands.”

Shane looks at him, feeling compelled to look away. It’s one of their moments, he supposes, when Ryan looks at him and his smile is just for Shane alone, full of fondness and trust. A rare moment when Ryan shows how close Shane actually is to his heart. Those moments always scared Shane for some reason; enough that he always felt compelled to look away. He always felt like they were too big for him to face. It was only sometimes, in small quiet moments like these, that he realized their significance. When they pulled over at a stop on the highway, relaxing in a cafeteria with a cup of tea while Ryan went through the footage even though he could never concentrate in public spaces. Or when they finally reached their hotel, and while Shane was relaxing on the bed, preparing for a shoot, Ryan would actually take the time to pick out an outfit, find his contacts and arrange his jackets in the closet, while Shane silently observed him, knowing that Ryan knew he was being viewed. Even those moments felt too much sometimes. Shane watching, following the curve of Ryan’s shoulder that turns into his neck. Ryan stilling, knowing he was being watching.

Maybe, all along, Shane had been the one to run away from them. And so this time, he refuses to look away. He sees Ryan’s eyes widen a little with surprise, and Shane wonders when Ryan got used to it. Becoming closer and then pushed away.

Without saying anything, Ryan leans in and rests his head against Shane’s shoulder. Shoulders that had been tensing at some point, and Shane drops them in abrupt self-awareness. Ryan closes his eyes.

Jen lowers the music, and when Ryan shivers, Shane drops an arm over his shoulder. No one (thankfully) comments, content to send each other looks they think Shane doesn’t notice.

 


	7. Chapter 7

The house is located on the edge of Santa Clarita. The sound of cicadas is noticeably louder, but the smell is better. Ryan has fallen asleep at this point, and the group is making slow, quiet conversation.

The sun has started setting by the time Jen makes a turn for a driveway. Thankfully, there’s no theatrical façade. It looks like a regular suburbian house, with a garden that’s a little overgrown, peels khaki paint and a dusty Honda.

A woman exits the house as they park, and Shane rustles Ryan awake. Ryan, who Shane suspects has been drooling on his jacket, opens his eyes and they’re red.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks, worried.

“I’m hungry,” Ryan grumbles. “Wait, where are we?”

“Santa Clarita,” Shane replies.

“Is there food here?” Ryan asks when he gets out of the car. He’s swaying and Shane takes his arm to support him.

The woman immediately goes to Jen, asking her to re-park the car, and when Jen walks back to her car, she sends Shane a face.

Ryan is starting to shake even worse, and when Shane looks down at him, he’s sweating.

The woman is walking towards them, hands in the pockets of the long teal cardigan she has wrapped tight around her body. Her curly hair is arranged in a bun, and the dark skin stands in stark contrast to the vitiligo markings on her face.

Her Indian accent is slight, but there. “You’re late, she has to sleep in an hour.”

“Uh, who?” Shane asks.

“My daughter,” the woman answers but when Shane only looks her, she lifts a brow. “Has Mary told you nothing?”

Shane shakes his head, and the pinched look disappears from the woman’s face.

“My name is Avni,” the woman introduces herself. “Get inside the house, before the neighbors notice you.”

They walk into the house, and Avni holds open the door for Jen.

“Caroline!” Avni shouts. “Ryan is here!”

“I don’t feel so good,” Ryan breathes.

“Put him on the couch,” Avni tells Shane, and just as Shane drops him, Ryan’s eyes close.

“Ryan?” Shane asks, and puts his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Ryan?” Shane asks again, this time more panicked.

“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” a voice says behind him, and Shane turns to look.

A girl is standing at the door, 12 years old at most. Her eyes are big and intent on them, her T-shirt red and shorts blue and _what the actual Hell_ –

“Why do your feet turn backwards?” Shane asks, staring at her feet and Avni snorts.

Caroline looks down at them like she has never noticed that about them before, before looking up to meet Shane’s eyes. “Why do yours turn forwards?”

A little smile broadens on Shane’s mouth. “What happened to Ryan, Caroline?” he asks.

“I made the demon go to sleep,” she tells Shane, bouncing. “Mom don’t want the demon to know where we live. Or to remember any of this at all.”

She enters the living room and Shane is trying real hard to not look at her feet, when Jen joins them.

“Woah, nice feet, kid,” Jen says after a minute of silence.

“I…” Maycie says, mouth open. “I just don’t understand how you can put nail polish on them.”

True, as Shane looks down again, Caroline does have a fresh coat of lilac nail polish on.

“Family secret,” Caroline giggles, stopping at the couch and looking intently at Ryan for a minute. “I can see that something angelic has recently tried to repel it,” she notices in a much more serious voice. The birds are whistling outside, the orange light dying her black hair a fierce red.

“Yeah,” Shane sheepishly confirms. “That would be me.”

Maycie giggles and Daysha snorts, but no one says anything.

“You haven’t seen it, guys,” Jen seriously tells Daysha and Maycie. “The only thing that darn demon is afraid of is Shane.”

“Not Shane,” Caroline disagrees, holding the hand afloat over Ryan’s forehead. “His guardian angel. Gabriel’s shadow.”

Shane closes his eyes.

“You seem utterly unsurprised, Shane,” Daysha says a little accusing.

“Listen, a lot has been happening lately, okay?” Shane a little snippily counters. “Being stuck to your demon-possessed friend all of the time sorta reveals stuff you didn’t know before.”

An insistent katydid wails in the distance.

“Why only a shadow?” Maycie hesitantly asks.

“What, he needs Gabriel themselves to guard him?” the girl laughs.

“Well, what is a shadow, because I’m lost,” Maycie admits.

“A shadow is the promise slash blessing of an angel,” Avni explains from the door. “It could be anywhere from an angel blessing him directly, sending a prayer to their maker on your behalf or simply promising to protect you.”

“It was a promise of protection,” Caroline says, sounding very sure about it. “But you weren’t the one to receive it. The shadow is much older than you.”

Shane doesn’t answer.

“Have you interacted with it?” Avni asks. “Directly?”

“Yeah, last night,” Shane says. “And a little this noon after filming.”

“Three times, though you probably don’t remember the last,” Caroline corrects, and goosebumps break out on Shane’s arms and back.

“I don’t.” He does. Why is he lying.  

“Inferus is plotting something,” the girl says, hand stilling. “It knows something that you don’t know. You should stay wary for an unpleasant surprise.”

Shane frowns.

“Makes sense,” Avni sighs, sitting down on the twin couch. “If you’ve been repelling it and it hasn’t tried fighting back, it probably has something that will deem your plan useless.”

Shane closes his eyes and rubs his brow. Daysha puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Caroline stands up and walks (still unnerving to look at) to a cupboard and takes a small cup plastered with sequins and glitter, a necklace and a small knife.

She walks back to them and looks at Shane.

“Give me your hand,” she says and he expects it when she cuts into his hand. Not for the first time he wonders what the heck his life has come to as she tilts his hand so it drips into his hand.

“Woah, we’re doing blood rituals now?” Jen grins, but Shane suspects she’s just really excited about the knife.

Caroline wordlessly reaches out for her hand, and Jen endures the same cut and drip process. Maycie is afraid of the pain and Daysha asks Jesus for forgiveness before letting her hand be cut as well. While Avni gets bandages, Caroline swirls the cup like it’s a glass of wine she’s going to take a sniff of, before unlocking the necklace.

It’s a crucifix, and she dips it into the blood.

“Jesus died as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity,” Caroline says, but something tells Shane she isn’t talking to them. “Let his sacrifice be law, and let this human go. Ryan Steven Bergara was possessed by Inferus, the faceless, to suffer for the sins he has committed. Let his God hold a hand over this faithful servant, who has been cursed with the third eye and who for the second time in his life risks being prematurely dragged to Hell. Let this blood be a testimony, a sacrifice for the spirits, to keep Inferus from rendering this body a living corpse, stop Inferus from dragging this young man to Hell –“

Ryan’s eyes fly open, and he grabs the hand that’s holding the necklace. She screams and he hears Avni drop a glass in the kitchen. Ryan’s grasp on Caroline’s wrist is hard, and Shane shoots forwards, grabbing the hand Ryan has on Caroline.

The glass and necklace fall to the ground.

“Ryan, let go of her!” Shane snaps.

Avni is suddenly there, shouting something in rapid Hindi and Ryan lets go so quickly Caroline falls back. Immediately Shane picks her up and lifts her a few steps away from Ryan.

Ryan’s nostrils flare, but his eyes are empty. He sits up slowly in the couch. Daysha cries out, but Caroline is steady in Shane’s arms.

“He can’t leave the couch, I made a salt circle around it,” she confidently says.

Ryan throws his feet onto the floor. Shane can recognize that Ryan isn’t the one that’s looking at him right now.

“You also said he wouldn’t wake up,” Maycie exclaims, a little panicked and she would probably feel bad about yelling at a kid later.

Shane meets his eyes, and suddenly he knows three things.

  1. Inferus has come to stay.
  2. Inferus won’t stop until Ryan’s body is dead, and Ryan’s soul is desecrated in Hell.
  3. Inferus isn’t scared of Shane. Not at all.



“Ryan,” Shane slowly calls out, and the weird light feeling spreads in his gut. It’s odd because it makes this situation feel unreal to him. “I know you’re in there.”

The light feeling grows bigger.

Ryan stands up, but he’s blinking slowly like he’s coming out of a daze.

“Don’t, Shane,” the soft voice from that night says, and Shane briefly wonders if the others can hear it too. “Don’t be fooled.”

“No, he’s coming out of it,” Shane replies.

“What?” Maycie asks, and that answers the question of whether the others can hear the voice.

“Look, what do I call you,” Shane ponders. “Billy? Billy. I can see him coming out of it.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s in control,” Billy replies. “And my name is Gabriel.”

“Your name is not Gabriel, you’re the leftovers of them,” Shane mutters.

“Shane?” Ryan asks.

“Hey, buddy,” Shane calls back. “How are you feeling?”

“Good?” Ryan answers. “Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah, the ride really took it out of you,” Shane replies. “Listen, Ryan, what’s my middle name?”

“Huh?” Ryan replies, but everything is starting to shake, and Ryan is blinking hard, his neck bending unnaturally. “What –what – what – what – “

He keeps stuttering, knees jerking as if trying to walk past the couch.

“What – what – what – “ A cramp of sorts bends Ryan’s spine, and he grabs for the couch as he falls to his knees, shaking his head.

“Ryan?” Shane calls out.

“What – what – what – “

The shaking of his head becomes more rampant, uncontrolled as if something is shaking it like a rag doll’s, but his neck and shoulders are completely still.

“What – what – what – “ His stutter turns into agonized screaming.

“Billy, do something!” Shane shouts, panicking.

Ryan’s shaking head slams into the wood arm post, and Ryan grabs it with both of his hands, slamming his face into it again, his words turning into outright screaming and Shane can’t take it anymore.

He runs to the couch, and jumps at the last step, not wanting to disturb the circle of salt underneath the carpet.

Ryan keeps screaming, keeps slamming his forehead into the wood arm post, until Shane gets his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, holding him back. When Shane pulls him back, Ryan’s face is completely ruined. His nose is broken and bleeding and both of his brows are split open.

“Stop,” Shane shouts, voice shaking. “Please, stop!”

Ryan looks at him with bleary, red eyes. “What – what – what – what – “

“Ryan!” Shane shouts in fear, his hands shaking as he cups Ryan’s cheeks. “Please, please, please – “

Ryan keeps screaming, but his eyes are staring into Shane’s, holding on to him. And Shane just knows Ryan can see him, is looking right at him. “What – “ the believer says, voice hoarse. “What – what…”

His voice fades, shaking head stilling until Ryan is just shivering. Ryan’s eyes are wide and desperate, but unblinking.

His lips keep moving.

“Ryan,” Shane whispers, and to his horror his voice is wet and muddy. “Come back to me. Come back to me.”

Ryan starts to blink, and Shane leans forwards, pressing their foreheads together. Shane can’t believe it was only an hour ago he had looked at the sunset, and thought things were going to be alright.

“Come back to me,” Shane pleads. And he feels Ryan’s hands come up and cup Shane’s jaw.

Ryan’s lips are wet and soft underneath Shane’s. He doesn’t know which one of them moved in first, but they’re there and Shane can taste the other’s blood, taste the gold in his veins, taste Jupiter swirling big and proud around the Sun, so much bigger than all of the other planets combined, and Shane closes his eyes.

Venus has always been brighter.

Everything stops.

They’re floating in a void. Everything is endless around them, and never has Shane felt so small and yet so powerful. An icy feeling runs from the top of his spine to his arms, his fingers, his stomach. He feels it emit from his fingers, his lips, his eyes and the arms around his neck hold him tighter as Ryan pulls him in.

“Shane,” Ryan whispers against his lips. “Shane.”

He says it like it’s the only true thing, and when Shane pulls back, Ryan’s eyes are pitch black and a soft glow shines on his face. Shane doesn’t know from where it’s emitted, but it makes Ryan’s face look sharper, his eyes seem more bottomless. Like two holes.

“Come back to me,” Shane whispers back, and gradually, muscle after muscle, Ryan relaxes and his lips come to press against Shane’s again.

Everything fades.

\----

When Shane wakes up, the crickets have become louder outside, and he’s lying down on something soft. Still, his back hurts, and he feels a little cold.

It’s not long before he notices something warm in his hand, and he opens his eyes and turns his head to see Ryan lying beside him, placed on the same duvet-covered mat. His eyes are open though, and when he looks at Shane, there’s a soft smile on his lips. Weirdly enough, his face looks unscathed.

At that Shane remembers what happened, and he sits up. “Wait, what happened?”

The room looks foreign, but Shane has a feeling they’re still in Avni’s house. The tapestry is so faded that its patterns are almost indistinguishable, its color a warm caramel, the color of the curtains almost the same color. There’s a small desk and a few cardboard boxes, but otherwise the room is empty. Dizzy, Shane sits up to look for his glasses. Thankfully they’re lying right beside the mat, and he picks them up, abruptly feeling Ryan’s hand slide out of his as he grabs them. By the time he has put on his glasses, Ryan is nowhere to be seen and there’s only a faint imprint on the mat where he used to lie.

“Ryan?” Shane calls out, his voice echoing back to him.

He’s nowhere to be seen, but the door is left ajar, something Shane didn’t notice it was before. Still, Shane looks around and that’s when he sees the figure sitting on the windowsill. He jumps with surprise, taken aback, but for some reason he isn’t afraid of the figure.

It’s a muscular man with carbon black skin, and chestnut brown eyes that look too big for his face. He doesn’t have any hair, but his body is covered with trails of dew-looking, iridescent pearls, and it makes his body shine in frosty blue, amethyst purple, and bubblegum pink. He’s wearing a black cape that looks more like a veil, and his black suit has a high collar and long sleeves. Thick chains of flowers are wrapped around his neck, their colors vibrant and bright against the darkness of his clothes and skin. He looks oddly familiar.

“Where did you come from?” Shane asks, because he swore that man wasn’t there a moment ago.

The man tilts his head. “I already answered that question, Shane. Pay attention.”

Shane blinks, before frowning. “Billy?”

Billy rolls his eyes at him.

“Why can I see you?” Shane asks.

Billy jumps down from the windowsill. “This is not on the physical plan of existence,” Billy replies, and when Shane looks outside again, it’s broad daylight even though the sun should’ve gone down already. “Avni and Caroline’s house are one of the very few portals in which a human can pass through.”

Shane looks at him, before walking to the window. Billy steps aside, and let’s Shane look. The view is almost the same, except everything past the fence of the garden is colored blue, like the house is placed in a snow globe or something.

The garden around the house also looks much bigger, wide fields of trees covered the wildlife underneath.

“Shane?” something calls, and at first Shane thinks it’s Caroline, the voice young and frail. But after a moment, Shane realizes the voice is different.

He turns around, and a boy is standing by the door, peaking in. He isn’t that tall, and has a delicate frame, wearing a red shirt and brown shirts. He has bangs and his eyes are big and dark, mouth small and half-open.

“Hello,” Shane calls out, softening his voice.

The boy gasps, his eyes widening. “Shane?” he asks again.

“Yeah, buddy, it’s me,” Shane smiles at him, and he realizes that the thin upper lip and the full lower one, the protruding lids and the round dark eyes are all features of one particular person he knows very well. “Ryan?”

The boy gasps again and runs away, and Shane makes to follow him, but Billy grabs his arm.

“Don’t,” Billy says, his fingers ice cold. “You can’t help him.”

“What are you talking about?” Shane asks, shrugging himself loose and walking out of the door. Billy sighs behind him.

_Splash._

Shane looks down, but it is exactly as it sounded like. He didn’t just step into a puddle; the hallway is actually flooded with ankle deep water.

Shane can hear the quick, splashy footsteps of the boy running through the hallway and around the corner. Shane quickly stalks him, hearing Billy follow him closely behind.

Just as Shane rounds the corner, the hallway looks abruptly darker and Shane sees a door at the end of the hallway slam shut.

“Shane, when will you learn to listen to me?” Billy asks.

Shane walks to the door.

“Don’t open it.”

Shane pushes down the door handle. It’s the bathroom, and as Shane opens the door, even more water pours out. Shane holds the door to not fall over with the force, and immediately notices the stench of something. A stench he has smelled many times before.

“Shane.” Billy’s voice is shaking.

Shane walks into the bathroom and sees that the shower curtain has been pulled around the tub.

“Ryan?” Shane calls.

He should know better. Anyone who has seen a horror movie knows what’s going to happen next. The stench becomes almost unbearable as Shane walks into the bathroom, and the light flickers. The water is pouring down the edges of the bathtub in steady streams, and Shane can feel the water soak his socks, shoes and seams of his pants.

When Shane pulls away the curtain, he has time to see three black holes that used to be eyes and a mouth, before Billy pulls him away and abruptly they’re standing outside the bathroom again.

“What was that?” Shane asks, choking.

Billy doesn’t answer, only stands there. “I told you to leave him.”

“I – I – “ Shane stutters, feeling tears well up in his eyes.

“Go to the garden,” Billy says. “There, you will find Ryan.”

“But – “

“Don’t look back.”

And with that, Billy is gone. Shane wonders if he’s gone invisible or if there’s another plane of existence it’s possible for angels to go to. Shane removes his glasses to wipe the tears away from his eyes, and walks down the wet stairs, the carpet squishing underneath his feet. The sun is still blazing outside, and Shane hopes he’ll be able to exit this astral plane at some point. So far he doesn’t like it much here. He walks down the corridor, and finally reaches the head door from which he came with Ryan and the girls.

The sun is hot outside, but the driveway where their car had been parked is gone. There’s a new little path, though, overgrown with dandelions and quack grass, and he follows it to the garden. The tree crowns are soon dropping lace-patterned shadows on his skin, but the environment feels oddly fake, distant almost. It’s probably because he can’t seem to sense any bucolic scent, dried grass neither sweet earth.

Something rustles behind him, and Shane turns.

Baby Ryan is standing behind a tree, watching him with wide eyes.

“Ryan?” Shane calls out, and this time he makes sure to kneel, and make his voice kind right away. “Are you lost?”

Baby Ryan shakes his head.

“Are you hiding?” Shane asks instead,

Hesitantly, Ryan nods.

“What are you hiding from?” Shane asks.

Slowly Ryan points towards the house.

“Is that where the big bad is?” Shane asks, the image of baby Ryan’s lifeless body lying in a bathtub unfortunately still not faded from his memory.

Instead of answering, Ryan runs away. Like an asshole.

“Ryan, wait!” Shane calls out.

“You should leave him for now,” Billy says behind him. “He won’t be able to leave this world either way.”

Shane bows his head. “Who is he?”

Billy walks closer, his steps scrunching the grass underneath his bare feet. “He is the most intuitive part of Ryan,” he answers.

Dryly swallowing, Shane closes his eyes. “Why…”

“A child?” Billy asks, looking at the direction Ryan went. “Would it hurt you to know, that Ryan looked like that the first time he became possessed?”

Caroline… did mention that. When Shane looks at him, Billy looks apprehensive.

“Follow me,” Billy tells him, and reluctantly Shane follows. He has so many questions, so many things he needs to have explained, but he doesn’t even know where to start and with the added pressure of time running out that all LA people feels at any time, it makes him hard to think of any

“Why me?” he finally asks.

“What do you mean?” Billy asks, even though Shane has a feeling the angel damn well knows what Shane means.

“Why am I protected, and not Ryan?” Shane clarifies. “If he has been possessed before, and it’s happening again now… I mean, I’m an atheist, and Ryan believes in… in something. In you.”

Billy tilts his head. “Fair question,” he acknowledges. “In 1944, a prisoner of Auschwitz called Sibilla Bartnik escaped and got lost in the surrounding forest area. She had the beginnings of tuberculosis in her lungs, weighted 99 pounds and was going through her third miscarriage.”

Shane looks at Billy, whose eyes stay on the road ahead.

“After having wandered for 11 hours and 34 minutes, she collapsed from exhaustion. It was November and she hadn’t been able to feel her feet and hands for a while,” Billy continues. “As she looked at the trees, she concluded that if humans were made in God’s image, his cruelty shouldn’t be a surprise. When I came to her, her eyes were closed and her heart was still. I prayed to God, asked him to breathe life into her body. Not because she deserved to live, because many did. But because I knew she would make a difference.”

Shane frowns at him. “What, you can tell the future?”

Billy shakes his head. “No. Because people who witness miracles usually do.” Which makes no sense whatsoever. They stop. “She later found her husband, Aleksander Madej, and moved to the States. They changed their names to make them seem more American.”

“Alexander and Sabrina,” Shane sighs. “Dear God. My grandmother…?”

Billy nods once. “My blessings stayed with her and her children. And their children. My blessings left me, an echo of Gabriel.”

Shane rubs his eyes. “So you’re not an outright guardian angel. You’re just a side effect of an angel blessing my grandmother.”

Billy nods.

“I guess, now I know,” Shane mutters. “But how does that help me save Ryan? And don’t tell me that I can’t save him, because I’m not going to settle for that.”

Shane realizes why everything around them seems so far away. No birds are singing.

“I don’t know,” Billy reluctantly answers. “All I know is that I’m here, and I’m protecting you.”

Shane holds his breath, and he can feel his heart beat faster. “You’ll always be here, right?” Shane asks, suddenly realizing how secure he’s been allowing himself to feel because of Billy. “No matter what I do?”

Billy smiles, clearly hearing the subtle tone of desperation in Shane’s voice. “I’ll be here,” he assures, and turns around. Shane follows his gaze, and sees baby Ryan standing among the trees, looking at them.

“What about him?” Shane asks.

“He’ll stay here, unfortunately,” Billy sighs.

“What is he, exactly?” Shane asks. “And the… the body in the top.”

Ryan stares at the for a moment longer, before turning and running off.

“When a human soul is touched by something celestial, a part of them will always wind up here,” Billy explains. “The Ryan you see, is Ryan’s soul trying to escape Hell. The Ryan you saw in the tub is already in Hell. Even if Ryan is set free, they’ll wind up here, again and again, until his soul has freed from his body. Now go, Shane. Follow the path, and look at the violets the whole way. Don’t look back.”

Shane nods, looking at the path, narrow and so overgrown it would feel claustrophobic. But the light seems almost blue over there, like it’s twilight over there. “You mean when. When Ryan is set free.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rather short chapter, but trust me, next one is gonna be hella long

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Jen asks, her voice far away. “He’s dead, and Ryan keeps doing that thing – “

“Calm down,” Daysha interrupts. “Our boys will be alright. Right?”

“Eh,” Shane comments.

“Shane?” Jen calls out and right away he can hear her walk towards him.

He can tell he’s lying on a couch, solely because of how much his back is aching. Groaning, he rubs his eyes, just as someone pokes him in the shoulder and when he looks up, he can see Jen holding out his glasses. He sighs and takes them, before sitting up.

“That was messed up,” Shane comments.

“Were you really in the astral plane?” Daysha asks, brows lifting.

“Yeh,” Shane answers, kinda mellowed because saying it out loud and clear makes him feel stupid. He’s in the bedroom he previously woke up in, but it’s dark outside and the smell of dust and dried spices is considerably more noticeable. Also he has about five mosquito bites on his legs that are already driving him crazy.

“Where’s Maycie?” Shane asks, as Daysha starts looking through her bag.

“She went to help Avni and Caroline with the ‘protective barrier’,” Jen answers making quotation marks with her fingers, just as Daysha finds a tiny travel-friendly bottle of water in her bag.

She gives it to Shane, and he gulps it all down.

“And Ryan?” he asks.

“Bathroom,” Jen answers, and Shane stands up. His knees are a little shaky and his vision is a little spotty, but he doesn’t as much as sway as he walks towards the bathroom. The hallway feels familiar, but there’s no water this time, only the soft creaking of old wood.

“I don’t know if you should go there,” Jen says. “They put him in there to make sure he won’t hurt any of us – “

“It,” Shane corrects. “That thing ain’t Ryan.”

She stops for a moment, before hurrying to catch up with him. “Where is Ryan?”

“In the garden, somewhere, probably still hiding,” Shane answers and opens the door. The shower curtains are open this time, but the scene isn’t any less unsettling. Ryan is lying in the bathtub, his eyes wide open but empty. He’s looking at the ceiling, his lips apart. He’s gasping as he breathes, his neck as black as dark water.

The edges of the bathtub are littered with stones and a few flowers here and there.

And Shane is just so tired of his world changing so rapidly around him. He’s tired of astral planes, guardian angels, faceless demons, and most of all, he’s tired of his best friend being possessed. Most of the time he tries not to think about it, think about a demon slowly but surely devouring his short stack of a friend on the inside, a place where Shane can’t fight it, just like he couldn’t fight his grandpa’s cancer or his mother’s depressive episodes.

He misses Ryan. He misses Ryan talking about sport events Shane doesn’t care about and sneakers Shane can’t tell the difference between. He misses his friend’s too big mouth and too big teeth, the secret smiles he shares with Sara, the way he becomes so heated about mysteries, the way he loses himself in his research.

All the times they enjoyed their lunch outside in the sun, wearing their sun glasses and idly chatting? When Ryan would get upset about Shane forgetting to take his shoes off when he went into his apartment? When they shared that look, and realized that they had to share a bed while at a hotel, because the staff got Ryan’s order wrong?

All of that he had experienced with Ryan, and, what, Ryan was just going to disappear, just like that, and Shane _would let him get away with it?_

Ryan didn’t deserve to die.

With that, Shane bows down. He grabs Ryan around the back of his neck, and lifting his head is kind of like lifting a rag doll’s. Ryan’s feels too hot underneath his palms, but Shane can see the black fade. He leans and presses his lips against Ryan’s. They’re chapped, moving with the quiet gasps, and as Shane presses in harder, he can feel them tremble in response.

And Shane keeps kissing Ryan’s lifeless mouth until they’re falling apart, until Ryan sighs and moves underneath him. Gingerly, his lips start moving in answer, and hands come up to rest on Shane’s cheeks.

Shane pulls away, and when he meets Ryan’s eyes, they’re not empty anymore.   
“Welcome back, buddy,” Shane huskily greets.

Ryan’s eyes are wet and dark, but he smiles a little crookedly.

\----

Caroline is sleeping by the time they’ve packed up their stuff. Avni morosely tells them that there is nothing to be done until the demon has weakened considerably more, and even though the demon took a strong hit tonight – both spending energy on fighting Avni and Caroline’s spells and manifesting – it just isn’t quite there yet.

And so they get into Jen’s car, a little scared, a little hopeful and very tired, and drive home. Shane is at the wheel, even though he dislikes driving and he has to push his seat back so far that Jen can barely move her legs. None of the girls say it, but they feel better with Ryan sleeping in the front passenger seat anyway.

“So, what happened back there exactly?” Jen asks. “All we could see was you calming Ryan down, and he’s – man, your eyes turned all white.”

“Is it hard to believe, even though you saw it?” Shane asks, trying to divert the conversation.

“Mmmm, nah, I’ve spent 70% of the time staring at Caroline’s feet,” Jen answers. “I’m pretty convinced it’s all real, which brings up the real question: Do mermaids exist? Are they gay?”

“It could be a body anomaly,” Daysha suggests, but nothing in her voice indicates that she actually believes that.

“Look, we all saw what happened tonight,” Jen still says a little defensively. “I would have a hard time trying to justify all of it as a combination of, what, weird coincidences?”

Shane doesn’t reply to that. He doesn’t feel like convincing them; probably because he still feels like all of this is a weird dream somehow.

It’s silent as they keep driving, until Shane’s phone starts ringing. He’s completely forgotten about that thing, and he fumbles to find it for a minute, before he hands it over.

Daysha picks up. “It’s Daysha, you’re on speaker, Steven.”

“Yoooo, how is your road trip going?” Steven asks, and before they can answer, he continues: “Anyways, me and Andrew’s are doing fine. I got your clothes, Ryan.”

“Ryan is asleep,” Maycie says.

“Oh thank god,” Steven sighs in relief. “Listen, I talked to Ryan’s parents. You won’t believe what they told me.”

“What?” Maycie replies.

“This has happened before,” Steven reveals. “When he was a kid!”

“How ‘bout you start from the beginning,” Andrew suggests in the background.

“Right,” Steven says, and takes a deep breath. “So I dropped by Ryan’s house, and of course, Ryan’s mother being like she is, she invited us in for tea. She said she hadn’t gotten anything but text messages since Ryan was hospitalized, and that she was worried. So I kinda like, hinted at the subject, you know, indicated that something was up?”

“Yeah?” Maycie encourages.

“And I just casually – “

“ - _casually_ – “ Andrew huffs, incredulously.

“ – mentioned that Ryan might be possessed by a ghost, or at least he believes so. And Ryan’s mom, man, she just went all pale and his father started freaking out and asked us all of these specific questions, you know, things that are happening to Ryan right now, like him not eating and getting upset quickly and not sleeping – and, and, I said yes, and that we already had a priest over and that you were visiting some spooky folk right now, to look further into it, and – “

“Breathe, Steven,” Andrew says, and Steven stops talking, and breathes deeply for a while.

“Ryan’s room, his childhood room?” he asks. “It’s littered with charms. There were crosses hanging from the windows, and there’s like this carpet underneath Ryan’s bed, and underneath it, they hired some witch to draw a giant David’s Star on the floor.”

“It was pretty creepy,” Andrew comments.

“They told us that when he was 7, he was possessed,” Steven continues. “Also by a demon. It went on for 23 days until they called a priest, who got him exorcised.”

“And he doesn’t remember any of it,” Andrew adds. “His parents ended up telling him that he had just been really sick and he slept through most of it.”

It’s silent for a moment as they process the information, before Daysha asks: “Wait, didn’t Caroline say that the demon knew something we didn’t? And that it would ruin our plans?”

“Whaaaat,” Steven answers.

“Shane,” Jen says. “You don’t look surprised by any of this.”

“Because I’m not,” Shane replies. “Jake told me that Ryan used to get really bad nightmares and stuff. In the voodoo video, he admitted that it was because he felt like something was always watching him. And on the astral plan, he…”

“Wait, astral plan?”

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Jen grins. “Shane has secret shaman powers.”

“I’m sure that’s culturally insensitive,” Shane hums.

“Wait, what happened on your side?” Andrew asks.

Shane doesn’t interrupt Maycie when she tells about them arriving at the house, the spell Caroline and Avni supposedly put Ryan in to make him docile, the blood ritual and Ryan suddenly waking up with pitch black eyes, trying to hurt Caroline, and finally Shane and Ryan blacking out. She also tells Steven things Shane didn’t know had happened while he was out; them carrying Ryan’s body to the bathtub, Maycie helping fixing the hole in the protective barrier around the house, Caroline’s backwards feet and Shane locking himself into the bathroom with Ryan once he woke up, waking Ryan from his mysterious blackout, and finally, Ryan falling asleep in the car.

“Woah, that’s sick,” Steven comments. “Shane, man, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“It explains why the demon hasn’t been able to hurt Shane, despite how big of a pain in the ass he has probably been,” Andrew comments. “But there’s something I don’t understand: What did Caroline mean by Shane ‘doing what he has been doing so far’?”

It gets silent in the car as all of them turn to look at him and he can feel his ears go red.

“Long story,” he says. “Anyways, on the astral plane, Ryan was a child.”

“What did you see there?” Daysha asks, though something in her voice says she knows when she is being distracted.

He inhales deeply. “I woke up in the room I was sleeping in, but… I don’t know everything was kinda blurry and weird looking. Like I was in a dream. And the house was encased in this weird bubble, but the garden was so much bigger. And this child was standing at the door, looking at me and it was Ryan. I … I tried to chase him, to find him, but he kept running away from me. The demon was in the bathroom though, in the exact same spot where Caroline and Avni secured Ryan in the physical plane.”

He can’t bring himself to mention Billy, because surely, that would be too much to ask for them to believe. After all, it was more probable that Shane was in actuality in some coma, and this was all a nightmare. If he can barely believe it, he can’t ask people who hasn’t seen the things he’s seen to believe him.

“All of this is crazy,” Steven exclaims, confirming Shane’s suspicions.

“You know what’s even crazier?” Jen asks. “Caroline’s feet. Seriously.”

“Can you get over the feet thing already?” Daysha complains.

Ryan moves, and they all immediately quiet.

Shane shoots him looks, and sees Ryan frown before slowly lifting his head.

“Where are we?” he asks, rubbing his forehead. “Orh, man, my head.” He opens his eyes, and looks blearily at Shane for a moment, before turning to look at the girls.

“How are you feeling?” Jane asks.

Ryan rubs his eyes. “Like I was knocked out and I just woke up out in the open street with my pants down and my wallet missing.”

“I didn’t know shadow demons were your thing,” Shane comments.

“I–I wasn’t implying that Inferus is _sexy_ – “

“Sure sounded like it,” Shane snidely grins and Ryan huffs.

“Shut up, Shane,” he mutters but it’s half-hearted.

“Hello, Ryan,” Andrew greets and Ryan jumps in his seat.

“Holy fuck, oh my god,” Ryan gasps.

“Sorry,” Andrew says, not sounding sorry at all. “We were just talking about us dropping by your parents.”

“Oh, you got my clothes?” Ryan asks.

“Yeah…”

“Doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” Ryan comments and throws Shane an amused look. Something in Shane’s face must’ve thrown him off though, because his grin immediately fades.

“What?”

“I’m going to tell you when we get home,” Shane says. “Thanks for getting back to us, Steven and Andrew, let us know if you find out more.”

“We’re out,” Steven says before hanging up.

Ryan sighs in hopelessness.

Shane puts what he hopes is a comforting hand on his knee.

“Can we get McDonalds at least?” Ryan asks.

Because it’s the States, it thankfully doesn’t take long before they see a McDonalds-sign, and they pull into the drive-through. They eat in silence and at some point send Jen the gas money, but besides that they stay silent. Without having to be asked to, Jen drives past Ryan’s apartment and goe directly s to Shane’s, dropping them off.

“We’ll, uh,” Shane begins, when they’ve mounted the stairs. “We’ll probably have to do the Thing tonight.”

“Romance is dead,” Ryan says, trying to sound light but he ends up sounding nervous. “Make me popcorn first.”

“What kind do you want?” Shane asks, unlocking the door and taking off his shoes.

“Caramel,” Ryan predictably answers, taking off his shoes too and following Shane.

While Shane heads to the kitchen to make the popcorn, Ryan turns on the TV in the bedroom. It’s past midnight, and Shane already dreads going to bed, because not only is Inferus draining Ryan of his life force, but also Shane’s by intentionally waking him up every night at 3 fucking AM. They stayed up late the night before, and Shane could really use 8 hours of sleep. Thankfully, he’ll be clocking in at 10 tomorrow, but knowing Inferus the fucker would probably wake him up and be a pain. Couldn’t Inferus go and bother the neighbors or something, just for one night?

When he gets to the bedroom, Ryan has put on Black Lighting and peeled off his socks. Despite how he has made himself comfortable, he still looks embarrassingly not comfortable and he very visibly tenses up when Shane sits down on the bed as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> going through finals right now, but I'll still be trying my best to regularly. Wish me good luck T_T And thank u reading, make sure to let me know what u think :>


	9. Chapter 9

They eat the popcorn silently for a while, before Ryan says: “So… how are we going to do this?”

Shane slowly chews his popcorn, thinking it over.

“’Cause I’m kind of worried that I might black out and suddenly bite your dick off,” Ryan nervously adds, and that prospect does honestly scare the shit out of Shane, “which reminds me…”

Ryan stands up and leaves the bed. He comes back with his jacket, and with an embarrassed expression, he pulls something out of his pocket and it’s only when the light of the TV reflects on it, that Shane realizes Ryan is holding hand cuffs in his hands. And not the cute, frilly kind that Buzzfeed uses for their challenges, but actual steel handcuffs.

“For me,” Ryan unnecessarily clarifies. “I…”

“Ryan, you really don’t have to –“

“Maybe I want to.”

“Is this like… a kink?”

“No, I just… I’m really worried about the whole blacking out thing.”

Shane holds Ryan’s eyes for a minute, before sighing. “Yeah, okay, if it’s making you feel better.”

With that, Ryan climbs onto the bed, and picks the bowl up from Shane’s lap and places it on the nightstand. Shane keeps his hands carefully still on the bed, as Ryan slowly curls his hands around the back of Shane’s neck and pulls him into a kiss. Shane lets him, trying to stay loose and relaxed, not necessarily wanting to let Ryan take control, even though that would make it easier.

Ryan pulls back, and he meets Shane’s steady gaze for a moment, before he bites his lip. “I think you should fuck me,” he huskily suggests.

Which Shane actually feels almost complicated about? On one hand he doesn’t think he would’ve minded if the circumstances had been different. Except they are, and they’re only going to fuck because Shane might risk getting his dick bitten off otherwise.

It feels wrong. It  _ is _ wrong.

At some point Shane bowed his head, and he startles when Ryan directs his head to his shoulder. And for a moment, that’s okay. For them to slow down, and quiet with the knowledge that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, but how it is anyway. Ryan’s shirt smells like sweat and a lemony laundry detergent. His hair is a little greasy when Shane looks at the small, black hairs on his nape, and Ryan wordlessly drives his fingers through Shane’s hair, messing it up even further.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ryan says.

Shane closes his eyes and presses the tip of his nose against Ryan’s neck. “I do, though,” Shane says.

Ryan breathes out. “I’m sorry,” he says but he shouldn’t be. It’s not his fault either.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Shane asks, and Ryan nods once, before wriggling off Shane’s lap. He comes back with two tumblers and an ice-cold bottle of whiskey. He pours up graciously, but they don’t clank their glasses together, before drinking the poison. The liquid burns in Shane’s mouth, a taste of fruit following the burn. It’s comfortably silent, except for the sound of the show, the midnight traffic, the sirens, and a distant beating bass. The glass is cool in Shane’s hand, liquid looking amber and gold in the dim blue lighting of the TV. He looks at the glass instead of at Ryan because that’s easier. His hand is shaking, the liquid threatening to spill at the edges.

He takes another sip, before feeling Ryan’s hand come up to encase his. Ryan puts both of their glasses on the table, before encasing Shane in his arms. Shane breathes out, and lets Ryan push him onto his back.

Ryan kisses him, but it’s gentle, careful. Unassuming. He’s not asking for anything. He never would.

And with that, Shane wraps a hand around Ryan’s neck and responds to the kiss, their lips moving against each other, spit mixing with each other’s. Ryan’s nails are blunt but sharp in Shane’s arms. For a moment, Shane feels encased in darkness. Like he’s in a hole somewhere where only the two of them know where is. The sky is black over them, the ground is cold, and maybe this is where Inferus wanted him all along.

But the look in Ryan’s eyes can’t be for anyone but him, and Shane pulls at the sleeves of Ryan’s shirt, pulling it off him. Ryan lifts his arms to help get it off, baring golden skin. Ryan stares up at him, dubious, but Shane kisses the reluctance away. Ryan’s arms are warm around Shane’s neck as Shane’s hands slide up Ryan’s tense stomach.

“Do you want to keep your clothes on?” Ryan neutrally asks, but Shane hears it as the chance it is. For Ryan to lie here, baring it all, and for Shane to keep his dignity.

Shane doesn’t bother answering, only takes off his shirt, then T-shirt. Ryan’s lids lower as he unbuttons his own jeans.

“C-Can I…” Ryan hoarsely starts, before clearing his throat. “Can I prepare myself in the bathroom?”

“Sure,” Shane says, and Ryan nods shakily, before getting up from the bed and quickly grabbing his bag on the way out. Shane hears the bathroom door close, and he sighs, rolling unto his back.

“You are noble.”

Shane almost pisses himself. He sits up, and sees Billy standing at the window.

“What the Hell?” Shane whispers. “Why are you here?”

Billy lifts a brow at him. “I’m always with you, I thought we went through this.”

Shane rolls his eyes, even though being literate is usually something he does. “Well, why can I see you?”

“The veils are wearing away,” Billy explains, moving the curtains aside to look outside.  A strip of light falls on his big eyes. “You have no idea what you put into motion, Shane.”

Shane sighs, and rubs his forehead. “I’m fucking my friend so he can get exorcised, what more is there to know?”

Billy shakes his head. “None of you are going to remain the same,” he says. “Both of you will be too close to our plane to ever step back.”

Shane looks at him. “Why?” he groans. “Why are there consequences to absolutely everything I do to help him?”  

“Helping your friend is the right thing to do,” Billy deflects. “I will support you.”

Shane tries to make his face as unimpressed as possible. “Wow, it’s almost like you only support me because I was going to do it anyways.”

Billy sticks out his tongue at him, and Shane sticks out his own right back at him.

“Who are you talking to?” Ryan asks from the bathroom.

“Myself!” Shane calls back and realizes it has been a while. He sits up and walks towards the bathroom. “Are you alright in there?”

“Uh… yeah?” Ryan hesitantly replies.

Shane waits for Ryan to continue, but there’s nothing. “You don’t sound sure,” Shane finally points out.

“If you had to measure how thick your dick is, how many fingers would you say there are?” Ryan nervously asks.

Shane nervously guffaws, before saying: “I don’t know, you’ve had it in your mouth.”

“ _ Shane _ .”

“Ryan, just get out of there and we will figure it out together,” Shane says.

He senses Ryan pausing, but then the faucet is turned on. “You’ll freak out,” Ryan says. “You’ll realize you’re fucking a guy.”

“You already gave me a blowjob, Ryan.”

“It’s not the same,” Ryan exclaims, not a little panicking. “I had my clothes on and you didn’t have to reciprocate – which I-I still don’t expect of you by the way – and you looked at the ceiling the entire time!”

Shane sighs. “Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make me seem all no-homo and disgusted.”

“W-Well you did.”

“Hey,” Shane says, his voice quiet. “Let me make up for it.”

The faucet is turned off, and the key rustles in the lock, before the door is hesitantly opened. Ryan peaks out, wearing a bathrobe. “I…” he whispers. “I haven’t done this before, you know.”

Shane doesn’t know how to process that information. On one hand he’s happy that Ryan is just as new to this as he is, but on the other hand it sucks that Ryan has to do it like this and do it with Shane.

Shane pushes the door open, and Ryan lets him, his eyes on the floor.

“We’ll do our best,” Shane says, pressing a kiss onto Ryan’s forehead. “I promise I won’t freak out when I see your dick.” He nervously laughs at the end of the sentence which is probably not helping.

Ryan hits his arm but lets himself be urged out of the bathroom. They place themselves on the bed, and in an attempt to bare himself first, Shane takes off his pants and underwear, which unsurprisingly makes him feel pretty vulnerable. Ryan looks at him for a quiet minute, his eyes heavy as he looks at first Shane’s red face, then down at his broad shoulders, flat chest, his soft stomach and at last down at Shane’s dick, lying flaccid between his skinny thighs.

Ryan sighs, and meets Shane’s eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You don’t have to do this. You can leave. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

Instead of answering, Shane slowly pushes the robe off Ryan’s broad shoulders until it falls to his waist. Not for the first time, Shane is briefly mesmerized by the roundness of Ryan’s shoulders, remembering when Ryan used to be one of the skinny guys in the office. Not Zach-skinny, but skinny enough that most size small sweatshirts still looked loose on him.

Now, his round shoulders extend into thick biceps, veined underarms. The definition on his chest is distinct, but there.

Shane’s hands slide up Ryan’s arms, trying to reassure him. Ryan follows his hands with his eyes, until they eventually still on Ryan’s waist. Ryan inhales sharply as Shane cups his hands around it. This time it’s Shane who pushes Ryan down on the bed, covering him with his own body. He can feel Ryan’s legs spread around him, and Shane grabs one of Ryan’s knees, squeezing it.

Ryan’s mouth slides open as he inhales and reminds: “The cuffs.”

Shane sighs, having hoped that Ryan would’ve forgotten about that, but then he does get up to grab the handcuffs. He puts the key on the nightstand where he can see it, and briefly debates how Ryan should be cuffed, before deciding that having his hands cuffed behind his back would be too uncomfortable, considering what they were going to do. So he arranges Ryan’s hands above his head, and locks them, quickly glancing down at him. The bruises on his face have turned black and blue, but the cut on his brow looks better.

“How do they feel?” Shane asks.

“Fine,” Ryan answers him, and Shane leans in to kiss him. Ryan responds tentatively, but his lips quiver and Shane is determined to soften him up with kisses until they won’t any longer. But when they’ve stopped shaking, Shane can feel Ryan, hard, against his waist and experimentally he rubs against the bulge with his hand. Ryan groans, and Shane moves down to kiss him on his neck. The stubbles scratches Shane’s lips, but the sensation must’ve felt good because Ryan sighs.

“Come on,” Ryan whispers. “Before I’m not loose enough.”

Surprised, Shane looks at him. Ryan meets his eyes. “Are you sure? I mean, foreplay would probably make it easier for you to enjoy… uh… the thing.”

Ryan’s lips purse and he looks away. “I’m not doing this for enjoyment. I just want it over with as soon as possible.”

That does sting a little for reasons Shane isn’t quite sure he’s ready to examine, but he still understands. There’s no reason to drag this out further than need be. Not this time anyway.

“Okay,” Shane breathes, and his hand travels in-between Ryan’s legs. Ryan inhales sharply as it slides down Ryan’s hard shaft, thick and hot. His balls are smooth and shaved, and when Shane feels his way down, it becomes slippery and wet. He circles Ryan’s hole with his fingertip, pressing gently until flesh gives away and his finger slips in. The feeling is different than what Shane is used to; the entrance is tighter and harder than a woman’s cunt, the insides barely wet. Shane pokes around a little, tries to scissor his fingers for a bit, before feeling comfortable enough to slip in two fingers.

At this Ryan gasps, but as soon as Shane looks at him, he turns his face away. The fit is tighter, and so Shane gently fingers him, pressing soothing kisses against Ryan’s neck, which is becoming dewy with sweat. Once Ryan is loose enough, Shane pushes in three fingers, immediately noting that Ryan is becoming dryer.

“Where did you put the lube?” he asks, voice low.

Ryan holds his breath. “I used the lotion in my bag. Don’t you have…?”

Shane understands and reaches over to his bedside stand and opens it. There’re condoms and lotion. Thankfully, the lotion he uses for wanking is perfume-free (at Sara’s insistence), and so Shane doesn’t feel too bad when he coats his fingers with it, before pressing in again. The friction is less, and Ryan throws his head back, inhaling quickly.

“The fuck? Why are your fingers so long?” he asks.

Shane chuckles. “You know what else is long?”

Ryan groans. “I hate you.”

But he does relax as Shane urges him open.

“I’m ready,” Ryan squeaks at some point.

Shane obediently pulls out his fingers, quickly coating his dick with lotion, before positioning himself. “Are you still sure you want to do this?” Shane asks.

Ryan nods. “Yeah. Come on. Or. A-Are you …?”

“Nah.” Shane pushes inside, and Ryan bites his lip, visibly holding back noises at the fit. “Are you…?”

“Just. Go,” Ryan whispers.

Shane pushes in slowly, and Ryan’s breathing quickens.

“Relax,” Shane says, kissing Ryan on the forehead, encasing him with his arms.

Ryan’s trying to talk, but his breathing is too hectic and Shane stills and just holds Ryan for a few minutes, until Ryan relaxes.

“You’re too good to me,” Ryan sighs, brushing some hair away from Shane’s forehead.

Shane smiles against Ryan’s skin. “What did you expect?”

Ryan shrugs.

“Hey,” Shane says, sitting up to meet Ryan’s eyes. “Just because I make fun of you all the time, doesn’t mean I would just, you know…”

Ryan grins. “Tear me in half with your dick?”

Shane groans. “You’re the worst.”

Ryan’s eyes become all warm, and his legs come up to curl around Shane’s waist. “I’m glad it’s you,” he admits, before blushing and quickly correcting himself: “Wait, that sounded wrong.”

“No, I get you,” Shane assures, even though he usually would’ve grabbed the opportunity to mess with Ryan. “If you mostly pick guys up at bars while drunk, I would be happy having someone I trust to do this too.”

Ryan still blushes. “You can move, you know,” he huskily whispers, avoiding Shane’s eyes.

And Shane makes the mistake of looking down. He hasn’t been looking at Ryan’s private parts yet, and so to see where they’re joined somehow takes him aback. Ryan holds his breath, his cock red and dripping on his own stomach, balls clenched tight. Shane’s cock is just as red, half-way inside Ryan.

A little uneasy, feeling like he overstepped a boundary somehow, he looks up again. Ryan’s eyes are dark, his lips chewed red and puffy.

Slowly, Shane spreads Ryan’s legs a little more, pushing further inside.

Ryan whimpers, and for the first time he lifts his head and looks down at them too. His eyes widen, and he abruptly throws his head back into the pillows. “I thought you were all the way inside,” he confesses.

Shane frowns, not only a little flattered, but mostly confused. “Ryan, you had this inside your mouth?”

“I tried to,” Ryan huffs, and Shane laughs dryly, leaning his forehead into Ryan’s shoulder, even though that means he has to bend his back uncomfortably.

“I can keep it like this,” Shane offers.

“Can you really?”

“For your info, this isn’t the first time I could only use the tip.”

He can feel Ryan swallow dryly underneath him. “W-Would it be a bother to you?”

“Nah,” Shane says, trying to make it sound as non-bothered and casual as possible.

Ryan audibly closes his mouth, before Shane can feel him nod. With that, Shane sits up on his knees again and pulls out, only to softly push in again. Ryan makes no sounds, but he doesn’t look in pain. He’s become looser during the time they talked, and feeling a little better, Shane starts to move inside Ryan. Ryan’s breathing picks up, but otherwise he doesn’t say or do anything. It’s a little weird to be honest, but Shane can’t expect for this to be passionate lovemaking.

He keeps up his rhythm, until Ryan fits him like a glove, still tight around him but not in a way that makes Shane feel like his mere presence is stretching him out.

Ryan’s breathing picks up and his cock remains hard, his stomach tightening every time Shane pushes in. Sometimes his dick twitches, and his eyes flutter. If Shane didn’t know better, he would think Ryan is enjoying it, but if he did, then why doesn’t he make any sounds?

Determined, Shane sits up and lets himself touch the inner parts of Ryan’s arms. He shivers at the caress, and watches Shane with dark eyes as he graces his hands down Ryan’s arms, and down his chest. The edge of Ryan’s ribcage surfaces as he inhales deeply, stomach rolling as Shane slides his hand down. He hadn’t really thought what he was going to do from there, but suddenly Ryan’s dick is there and it feels natural to slowly close his hand around it.

Ryan gasps shortly, before Shane can feel him grinding down on him. Even as Ryan does that, he whispers: “You don’t have to do that.”

“Maybe I want to,” Shane suggests. “The Madej train doesn’t leave anyone waiting, you know.”

“Oh god,” Ryan groans, his hips coming down on Shane’s again, this time taking him deeper and they both groan.

Shane rolls his hips, bending Ryan’s legs with his weight. He can feel Ryan’s hot breath against his neck, hear the soft sounds of the chain between Ryan’s wrist rustling. Shane closes his eyes and focuses on those sensations, of Ryan’s quick breathing, of his hands shifting, of his chest puffing up against Shane’s, his quivering hips that are starting to feel tight and too small in Shane’s hand. Shane steadily strokes him, and Ryan is twisting, when Shane gets a cramp in his hand, like he has been handwriting too long.

He stops jerking, and Ryan immediately stills.

“What?” he whispers.

“Can we shift positions?” Shane asks. “I have a cramp.”

“Sure, which one?”

Shane thinks about it for a moment, before getting off Ryan. He pushes Ryan to his side, mindful of his arms still raised above his head, and spoons him, pushing Ryan’s legs apart. It’s easier to control how far he pushes in this way, and Ryan feels impossibly tighter. Ryan gasps when Shane pushes in again, pressing his lips into the back of Ryan’s neck.

Ryan keens, and Shane whispers, “There we go,” before starting to thrust again. Ryan writhes, his cock thick in Shane’s hand.

They continue in that position for a while, until Ryan starts to tense.

“If you continue like that,” he whispers.

“Go ahead,” Shane mutters. “You can come.”

Ryan pushes his face into the pillow, and Shane can feel rather than hear when Ryan comes with a deep grunt. After that he stills, and Shane lets go of his cock, hand sticky. He wipes it on the sheets, his cock feeling heavy and hot inside Ryan.

Now he has to focus on himself for the first time during this process, but it’s like he’s been wound up too tight for too long, and it’s hard for him to let go. It doesn’t help that Ryan takes it like he’s asleep, even though Shane can very much hear his small gasps still. Shane doesn’t want to make this harder though, so he just focuses on the feeling of pushing in and out of Ryan. During it he notices the cold sweat on Ryan’s back, the uneven growth of his hairline, but eventually Shane has to conclude that his orgasm isn’t coming easy, even though he has never had problem with cuming before. The whole point of all of this is for Shane to ejaculate, and Ryan must be getting sore by now.

Eventually, Ryan does lift his head a little. “Is something wrong?” he asks.

“I don’t think I can, uh, complete this task,” Shane admits, a little embarrassed.

He can feel Ryan go completely still, and Shane doesn’t know if it’s because he’s afraid Shane would be pulling out (hah) or if it’s because he blames himself.

“Why?” he whispers.

“I just,” Shane gives up on trying to thrust and talk at the same time. “It’s not because you’re a guy. You’re just so … still. I feel like I’m screwing a doll.”

“Oh.” Ryan pulls away, and Shane’s cock slips out. Ryan turns around, so they’re face to face. “I just thought – “

“Ryan, I get it, I’m having sex with a guy even though I’m straight. This is LA, I won’t be repulsed and go flaccid the second I’m reminded of that.”

“I’m just trying – “

“To make it easier for me, yeah I know. But Ryan, I could’ve jerked off or bled in a cup and made you drink it, but I still ended up picking this way because it would easier for the both of us.”

Ryan frowns for a second, before his face softens and his eyes turn examining. “Okay,” he quietly whispers, before leaning over and kissing Shane. Shane closes his eyes, feeling like there’s a knot in his throat, but Ryan is easy, careful as he nudges Shane’s mouth open. Only now does Shane realizes that his breathing is shaky and rapid, his chest sweaty. Ryan is warm and close though, his hands coming down to stroke and brush through Shane’s hair. Distantly, Shane knows Ryan is trying to calm him down, and honestly, it’s working. It’s nice to be touched back, to feel like this isn’t just an awkward exchange of body fluids, but something intimate and something real, even if it isn’t.

Ryan curls a leg over Shane’s hip, and starts to grind against him.

“I love touching you,” Ryan confesses in a whisper, pressing his lips against Shane’s neck. “You’re so fucking …”

He kisses Shane again before Shane has time to answer, and Shane thinks of fire where Ryan’s hands rest, and he tries to relax, tries to make the thunderstorm of thoughts dissipate in his head, but it’s hard. Still, he feels a hum in his head, the pleasant feeling of sheets underneath his legs. Ryan’s heart is throbbing steadily in his chest. Shane can feel it through his own skin. Ryan’s lips are gentle, soft, and the hand that keeps stroking Shane’s hair is oddly intimate.

“Shane,” Ryan whispers, but he doesn’t follow up on it. Just starts sucking marks into Shane’s neck, fingers tightening in Shane’s hair. It’s a pleasant sensation even though the grip is a little tight.

And that’s how they lie for a while.

Wrapped up in each other, lazily kissing, just getting used to their skin pressing into each other’s. Shane feels content doing just that, even as his cock starts to soften. At the same time, he can feel Ryan hardening against him as his kisses become more passionate, more demanding until Ryan grasps Shane’s hand and places it on his ass.

Shane’s throat goes dry, but he presses in two fingers again. It has gotten tighter while they were making out, but the burn makes Ryan groan.

“Harder,” Ryan says. “Please, I can take it.”

Shane jabs his fingers, and Ryan moans, long and deep, his neck vibrating with it. His legs tighten around Shane’s hips and he grinds. Shane feels like it’s hard to keep air into his lungs, and he feels his cock harden quicker than is probably good for him, and his head feels full of cotton. So much that he almost doesn’t even notice when Ryan suddenly rolls him onto his back, and quickly straddles him.

He rides Shane’s fingers, the rolls of his hips small and jerky. His hands come down to balance his body on Shane’s chest, and his eyes slip closed, a pearl of sweat trailing down his neck and down to his chest. He moans, long and low.

Shane grabs his cock, and without any warning, he slips free his fingers and pushes in with his cock instead. Ryan cries out, his legs stiffening as he holds himself still. Shane pushes in, the heat and tightness overwhelming for a brief second, and then Ryan slams down without any warning. Shane groans, the burn delicious in its suddenness and Ryan grabs the headboard before starting a punishing pace, riding Shane hard and unrelenting. Shane mewls, his hands coming down to tighten around Ryan’s hips, and Ryan’s eyes slide open. They seem much darker than they did a minute ago, and only now does Shane notice the black veins on his neck.

“Shane,” Ryan groans, seemingly not noticing. “Shane.”

The headboard is banging into the wall, the veins on Ryan’s neck become thicker but the heat is too choking, the fog of pleasure too thick for Shane to focus on that.

“Shane,” Ryan shouts, and as he starts to cum, Shane rolls them over. Ryan cries out as Shane accidently pushes all the way inside, but that’s what Shane needs and as he starts to cum, Ryan starts trying to push him off, his shouting bending and twisting until it sounds inhuman, like an animal screaming in pain, but his arms are coming up to hug Shane tight, his legs curling around Shane’s waist and pushing Shane even further inside. The whining sound continues as Shane pumps his load deep into Ryan’s body, and the whining fades into a hoarse rumble.

When the world has stopped spinning and Shane can focus again, he realizes his glasses are gone, that his stomach, neck and face feels oddly sticky and wet, and that Ryan’s thighs are still clamped tight around his waist. His back is throbbing and stinging with pain.

“Ryan?” Shane hoarsely calls out.

He lifts his face. Ryan’s eyes are half-closed and empty, but his black sclera is receding. He’s silently crying.

“Ryan?” Shane whispers, cupping Ryan’s cheek.

There’s movement in his eyes now, and after a long moment, Ryan blinks. He inhales deeply, and then his eyes start to move, like he can only see now.

“Ryan.”

This time Ryan’s lips shake. “Shane…?” he whispers.

“Hey, little guy,” Shane gently calls out. “Thought I lost you there for a second.”

Ryan blinks heavily, and big fat tears well into his eyes. “I thought I lost myself there too,” he hoarsely tells Shane.

Shane dryly swallows, and Ryan turns his face away, his face twisting together in despair.

“What happened?” Shane asks.

Ryan swallows. “It burned me,” he says.

“Me? Or…”

Ryan closes his eyes. “Inferus. It burned me.”

Shane isn’t sure he understands completely, but he understands enough. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Ryan unknots his fingers, that are still locked together and slung around Shane’s neck, and pulls them back. That’s Shane’s cue to gingerly pull out, and roll off Ryan. Ryan immediately turns away from Shane, curling into a ball and holding his face. His shoulders are shaking.

“I’m sorry,” Shane says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“It’s not your fault,” Ryan says, and Shane thinks it’s supposed to sound mad, but it comes out defeated. “Oh my god.”

Honest to God sobs are coming out of Ryan now, and Shane can’t help but spoon him, embracing his body. It only makes Ryan’s sobs louder, and Shane feels powerless and upset.

Finally, Ryan’s sobs are starting to fade, and Shane dares to ask: “Why?”

Ryan clears his throat. “Because it’s working,” Ryan says. “It tried to stop me. It tried to stop me several times, take over, but I wouldn’t let it. And so it needed to punish me. When you came, it burned. And it took me with it.”

Shane doesn’t know what to say to that, but eventually Ryan falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. remember to comment, since it gives me an idea what project to prfioritize. No author posts to the void ^^


	10. Chapter 10

When Shane wakes up, it’s because he can hear the door creek open. He opens his eyes and sits up, only to realize that Ryan is no longer in bed with him. The moon outside is half, but Shane can’t find his phone for some reason. He sits up and looks at the door.

Baby Ryan is standing there, eyes wide and scared as they look at him.

“Ryan?” Shane calls. “Billy?”

He turns his head, and of course, Billy is sitting on the window sill, watching the quiet street outside. He barely turns to look at Ryan, like he has seen him many times before.

“Come here,” Shane asks the little boy.

And Ryan does in fact open the door wide. He steps into the bedroom, and chills run down Shane’s body.

Half of Ryan’s face is raw, his lid swollen. Half-dried blood has dirtied his shirt. The frown on Ryan’s forehead shows that he’s in pain, and Shane would probably feel in pain too, if half of his face’s skin was burned off.

Shane holds out his hand, and Ryan very carefully wraps it in his, letting Shane pull him onto the bed.

“Does it hurt a lot?” Shane whispers.

Baby Ryan holds his breath, before sighing. “Yeah.”

His eyes are big as they look up at Shane, and when Shane hears a tapping noise, Ryan holds his breath. The tapping noise continues, and it’s hard for Shane to identify it. The taps are too quick to be the house settling. Rather it almost sounds like… footsteps? Rather quick ones. Ryan exhales and starts to shake, his breath turning into a wheeze.

“Don’t let it hurt me,” he whispers, and Shane looks quickly at Billy, who has lifted his head and is looking at the open door. The tapping noise comes closer, and Shane realizes why it doesn’t sound like footsteps. There are too many limbs involved, and the sounds are ringing through the walls, and. And actually. It sounds like the sound of a spider, quickly skirting across the wall, if the spider had the same size as a human.

Billy stands up, and waves a hand at Shane to stay put. Quietly, Ryan starts crying, his eyes wide and full of horror, and Shane pulls him in, lying down on the bed and covering them with a duvet. Ryan’s breathing is loud and choking underneath the duvet, and Shane can only pull the child closer, the smell of burned flesh harsh in his nose. The tapping sounds come closer, but they slow. Shane can hear something like a sword be pulled out of a sheath. Ryan’s trembling worsens, but he keeps quiet even as his face gets wetter.

Then the tapping sound suddenly quickens, like Inferus has started running, and Shane can feel the duvet being pulled off, before a slamming noise sounds and the duvet is let go off. Ryan still doesn’t as much as whimper as the sound of fighting ensues in the room, until the tapping noise happens again, but this time fading away.

Shane uncovers his face, and Billy is standing there, his sword glowing in his hand, his cape … flapping?

Shane watches as the cape that had always looked like a veil twitches. In the cold light of the street and moon, it becomes obvious that they’re giant, dark transparent wings, but after a moment they still and flow down to the floor in their usual cape-like manor.

“Go back to your plane, Shane,” Billy instructs. “I will watch over him.”

“I don’t even know how I ended here,” Shane weakly replies, trying for a chuckle and ultimately failing. He’s shaking as well, he realizes.

Billy closes his eyes. “Well, you better get used to it.”

Shane suddenly remembers something. “Billy. What did Caroline mean with Ryan having three eyes?”

Billy sighs, and they hear steps on the ceiling. Both of them look up, but it sounds like it’s coming from the floor above them. “Why are you here?” Billy asks instead. “Why is Ryan here?”

“When something otherworldly comes into contact with us we go here,” Shane dutifully replies. “And we never become the same again.”

“Exactly,” Billy answers. “Once you’ve been here, your soul never fully forgets. Ryan sought sanctuary here for many moons.”

“So you’re saying, that what, because Ryan was possessed once, he never really lost sight of the otherworldly?”

“Why do you think he can always hear and see things, you can’t? Why he sometimes feels watched?” Billy asks. “It’s his soul having changed after the first possession.” A little more quietly, he continues: “At the same time, his awareness of the otherworldly makes him incredibly vulnerable. Demons feed off fear.”

The footsteps disappear again, and Billy looks down at Shane and Ryan. “That’s why it’s important for him to keep working, to keep going. If he’s left alone, despair will take over, and it will be easy for Inferus to finish the job.”

Ryan is tense as he listens to what Billy is saying.

“What was that thing in the tub?” Shane asks, putting his hand on Ryan’s ear and Ryan closes his eyes.

Billy sighs. “The Ryan you are holding now, is the Ryan that is running. The Ryan you saw in the tub is the part of Ryan that has been captured. They’re not parts of his soul, if that’s what you’re afraid of. They’re broken memories.”

“I understand nothing of this.”

“You don’t have to. Go to sleep. I will protect you.”

\-----

Shane wakes up to the smell of bacon and eggs. He blurrily opens his eyes, the trip to the spiritual plane (ha) still clear in his mind. He grabs his glasses off the stand, and realizes that the sun hasn’t even come up yet. Checking the clock, he realizes they’ve only slept for four hours, but he doesn’t feel tired. Rather his body feels almost numb to him. His mind feels like one of a zombie’s. Present and constant, but unaffected.

After having brushed his teeth, he stumbles into the kitchen. Ryan is standing there, wearing Shane’s bottom pajamas that are far too long for him, shirtless. Besides the bruises and fingerprints, he looks good. Ryan looks over his shoulder, and smiles. His lips are looking a little sore.

“You’re up early,” Ryan notices.

“Yeah,” Shane says, stealing a sausage from the plate.

“Stop it, I haven’t finished that,” Ryan says, and shoves Shane aside.

Shane huffs, and turns to set the table, when he feels Ryan touch his arm.

“How ‘bout I clean up your back?” he suggests, and Shane frowns, before remembering the scratches Ryan made the night before. But as he reaches up, he can tell it’s far more than scratches. The blood is thick and congealed on the scratches.

He sits down, and Ryan quickly finishes frying the eggs and bacon, putting it on a plate besides the sausages and toast. He gets some disinfecting wipes and long strips of bandage with adhesive on them.

He cleans up Shane’s back, and plasters them on, and they eat breakfast quietly.

“I’m going to the gym with Jake,” Ryan tells him. “You can come if you want?”

Shane shakes his head. “Nah, I think I’ll try and clean up the house and myself. Meet you at work in,” he checks the clock, “an hour and a half?”

“Sure,” Ryan smiles. “Can I borrow a T-shirt?”

“Of course.”

Ryan puts on the clothes from yesterday, telling Shane that Jake would bring workout clothes with him. As soon as the door as closed, Shane sends two emails, one to Bloody Mary and the other to Caroline and Avni.

Having done that, he cleans up the house and takes a long shower, feeling one muscle after the other loosen and relax.

He’s finished around 30 minutes before he has to leave the house, and so he walks to the gym where he knows Ryan has a membership. Shane also has a membership, but he tries not to think too much about that. Ryan being possessed had become a recent excuse of many old ones to not work out.

Jake is lifting and Ryan is running fast –  _ really _ fast – on a treadmill. When he sees Shane, he smiles and waves, but Shane can sense the undercurrent inside him Inferus puffing the more time passes and Shane realizes he hasn’t kissed Ryan all morning.

“I’m getting off now,” Ryan says, and turns off the treadmill. He’s disgusting, literally dripping in sweat. “Jake, are you coming?”

“Nah, I won’t have to be in for another two hours,” Jake says. He looks as delicate as Ryan did before he started working out. Shane idly wonders if Jake is going to look more like Ryan if he too started wearing contacts and gained some muscle mass too.

“Alright, take care,” Ryan says, and heads towards the showers. Without even thinking about it, Shane follows him and Ryan doesn’t say anything, even though it probably looks weird.

“You seem tense,” Shane notices.

Ryan turns, lifting his arms as he turns in a little half-circle. “I’m fine. I feel a lot better.”

“Oh?” Shane asks, playing along even though he can just tell that there’s a fight going on underneath the surface. Isn’t Ryan supposed to be feeling better? Isn’t this supposed to be happening less? He should talk to Billy about that. He wonders if he has to sleep for that to happen, or if there’s some sort of Guardian Angel hotline.

Ryan grins at him. “If you want a blowjob, you can just say so, you know?”

“W-what?” Shane stutters, utterly shocked and Ryan’s grin turns into a leer. His eyes scan the room, before he walks to his locker to grab his bag. Shane sighs as soon as he has left the room, and idly listens to the automatic showers come on.

It takes all but five minutes before Ryan is exiting the showers, freshly flushed with a towel around his waist. He grabs something from his bag, and then walks quickly towards Shane, dragging him to the bathroom and pushing him inside with a surprising strength. He locks the door behind them, and pushes Shane onto the toilet, which lid is thankfully closed and drops his towel.

“I want you,” Ryan darkly mummers, before putting himself on Shane’s lap. To Shane’s surprise, Ryan is already hard, but before he can think it through, Ryan has pulled him into a kiss. Shane loses his breath with it, and lets himself be pushed by the insistent embrace of Ryan’s body, his hips grinding against Shane’s slacks.

He hears the pop of a tube being opened, and pulls away. “Ryan – “

“Ssssh,” Ryan shushes him, before huffing, his body curling against Shane’s. Shane looks behind him, and realizes that Ryan has got a hand behind him. Ryan groans, and Shane inhales sharply, feeling like everything is going very fast all of a sudden.

Then Ryan huffs again. “I can’t reach the place your fingers did.”

Ryan gives him a heated look as he says it, and Shane takes the hint, finding Ryan’s hand, twisted in an odd angle, two fingers deep inside him. Ryan pulls them out and holds his breath as Shane’s take their place.

He moans, low and deep, and Shane works his fingers, clumsy and quick but Ryan’s eyes flutter closed, his head falling back as he loses himself in it.

He pushes back on Shane’s fingers until Shane can feel himself leaking on his underwear.

Voices come closer out in the locker room, and wordlessly, Ryan stands up. Shane watches him as he presses his chest into the wall, hands falling at his sides.

“Come on, big guy,” Ryan calls out, his voice a quiet coo and Shane stands up, shucking off his slacks and underwear with clumsy movements, feeling them curl around his knees.

He positions himself, before pushing in, enjoying how much more delicious the friction of the lube is rather than the lotion. He only realizes their deal the night before when he’s balls deep. Ryan’s eyes are closed, mouth gasping heavily.

He’s good at keeping quiet, despite the situation, and then Shane slowly remembers: Ryan has done this before. He’s had sex in bathroom with guys before. They’re now having sex in a bathroom, and even though this is all startlingly new to Shane, it must be old to Ryan. Shane is just another guy Ryan is having bathroom sex with.

“Move,” Ryan whispers.

Shane sighs, breathing heavily into Ryan’s hair.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan whispers.

“My leg’s in a cramp,” Shane huffs.

Ryan stiffens. “You’re lying,” he whispers and turns his head. “Why?”

As he says it, he turns around and pushes Shane down onto the toilet seat, going back to straddling him.

Shane blinks, trying to avoid Ryan’s intense gaze.

“Shane?” Ryan whispers, his voice cracking a little.

A warm feeling starts in his chest, but Shane can’t figure out whether it’s a negative or positive one. He can only tell that it’s complicated.

“Come on, we’re going to be late,” Shane says.

Ryan’s eyes flicker with hurt for a moment, before he purses his lips. “What’s wrong?” he mummers, voice oddly dull and soft, like it’s coming from far away.

“Nothing,” Shane replies, the heated feeling in his chest growing worse.

“Shane,” Ryan says, but doesn’t add anything to it. He reaches up to hold Shane’s face gently between his hands, catching Shane’s wandering gaze. “Look at me.”

Shane does, and he doesn’t know what he finds in Ryan’s dark eyes, but it awakes yet another feeling, something stronger, darker, bigger and deeper than the warm feeling already resting in his ribcage, and it somehow leaves Shane’s mind blank.

All he can do is look into Ryan’s eyes, as the other man raises his hips and slowly pushes down. And as he repeats the motion, the sounds of the showers running disappear. The hot, tight feeling as Ryan pulls up ignites sparks down Shane’s spine. The sound of lockers opening and closing disappear. Ryan’s rhythm is growing faster. The stale smell of cold, sour sweat disappears. Shane’s spine is melting, and everything seems so dark around them. The huge clock ticking above the lockers stops. Ryan’s eyes are so dark. Ryan’s mouth opens slightly, his Adam’s apple wobbles, but Shane can’t hear what sound comes out. They’re moving together now, their chests breathing in tandem. A ringing sound replaces the silence in Shane’s ears, and it becomes louder as he is lifted up, up, and he’s breathing in Ryan’s ear, eyes widening and finally, like Shane is released from something, Ryan leans his forehead into Shane’s shoulder. Shane can feel his lashes tickle his skin, and Ryan is still rolling his hips, when he whispers: “Shane.”

And it feels like the first sound since forever, and Shane shakes with it, coming hard and intense inside Ryan. Ryan kludges him desperately, until he starts to quiver and then the quiver turns into shaking. Shane is starting to get worried that Ryan will freak out like last night, but the shaking settles and Ryan sighs into Shane’s shoulder.

“We’re so late,” Ryan finally says.

“Are you okay?” Shane asks.

“Yeah,” Ryan says, a little relieved. “It felt close there for a minute, but I feel like I got away.”

Shane thinks about the broken memory, destined to always run, remembers his burned face and Shane thanks the stars that the boy managed to get away for now.


	11. Chapter 11

Surprisingly enough they’re only ten minutes late, and nobody cares enough to comment, too taken aback by Ryan’s battered face. He laughs it off and lies so badly everyone knows he’s lying, but no one seems to want to be the first to call him out. They settle down at their desks, and Shane shoots Father Thomas a quick message, before settling down to read through the comments on the latest episode of Ruining History. The next 8 episodes have been cut and he’s just waiting for the editing team to comb them through, and then they’ll be queued to post while Shane and Ryan start the new Supernatural season.

At some point Ryan walks away to do research, and Shane tries to tell himself that the nervous shiver that momentarily shakes his body is only caused by worry. Soon enough, he loses himself in his work, though Ryan stays in the back of his head. Sometimes, he thinks he can see Billy standing at the window, looking out with a grim expression, but the moment passes.

At the end of the day, Shane waits at his desk, wanting to get home early so they can actually cook dinner instead of eating takeaway. Contrary to Ryan, Shane despises cardio, and so he feels the need to consume an actual vegetable or two now and then.

Finally, Shane gives it up and gets up to probably drag Ryan away from his books and truly enough, Ryan is truly immersed once Shane gets there.

“You alright there?” Shane asks.

Ryan blinks slowly and takes off his glasses to rub his probably dried-out eyes. “Yeh,” he says.

“I’m glad, because if it hasn’t escaped your notice, we’re kind of stuck together, and I wanna go home,” Shane lets him know.

“Oh, okay, sorry about that,” Ryan says, but he still blinks dazedly at Shane. He stands up and doesn’t bother packing together his stuff, before walking over to Shane and pulling him down into a kiss.

The naturalness of it takes Shane by surprise, but it has been a while and the demon is probably acting up, so he doesn’t let out the joke on the tip of his tongue and lets himself be swept away. Ryan tastes like the spinach and apple smoothie he drinks to stay hydrated and motivated, while doing his research. Shane can feel Ryan’s stubble against his chin, and Ryan’s arms wrap around Shane’s neck, pulling him closer. But the way he does it, is so oddly intimate. It’s demanding yet lazy, a desire with longing eyes, and Shane feels a wistfulness so intense that he misses Ryan all of a sudden.

Breath taken away, he pulls Ryan into him, and Ryan turns away his face, gasping like Shane’s body is hurting his, but before Shane can let go, Ryan is pushing in again and Shane feels the back of his thighs touch the table edge. Ryan’s body is thrumming against him, and Shane plants his lips on Ryan’s neck. Ryan sighs, his fingers curling around Shane’s neck, thumb rubbing circles against his pulse. His skin is hot against Shane’s lips. 

“Shane,” Ryan whispers in that same way he did this morning, and it ignites everything, like a car engine that suddenly thunders into life while the sky drastically goes black.

“Please,” Ryan gasps, as Shane’s kisses wander down.   
Shane finds his hands clawing around Ryan’s waist, fingers bruising into the muscle there. Ryan is breathing quickly, his chest vibrating with tension against Shane’s, and then Ryan is pulling Shane up while also kneeling down, and Shane hears the sound of his belt being unbuckled. Ryan pulls them down without pause, pressing a hot kiss into Shane’s hip bone. Shane has barely gotten hard yet, when he hears a knock.

“We’re closing up you guys,” Devon says on the other side. “Go home, get a life.”

Shane tenses, and so does Ryan.

“Okay!” Shane calls back, and Ryan huffs and slumps. Shane pats his head, and pulls up his underwear and jeans, before buckling his belt. By that time, Ryan has already packed his stuff and has grabbed his denim jacket.

They send each other a meaningful glance, before unlocking the door.

Devon steps back, but stops them before they leave. “Hey, Shane, you got the final video prompt approved by the boss.”

“Oh?” Shane asks, a little surprised. Mostly the producers - such as Ryan and Shane himself - got to make their own videos. Has he been waiting for a reply for a video? “I have to help As/Is?”

“No?” Devon says, looking confused. “HR has accepted your video prompt request? You know where you do the elevator game alone?”

Questioningly Shane stares at Devon. “What are you talking about?”

Devon looks at Ryan and then Shane. “Unsolved Network did a poll about solo ghosthunter Shane? The Elevator Game got the most votes, and HR accepted your request to film it. In the meanwhile, Ryan is going to fly to the next location to get everything arranged?”

When Shane keeps staring at her, she looks at Ryan.

Ryan looks deathly pale in the face, his eyes huge and horrified.

“Ryan, you’re the one who arranged all of this,” Devon continues. “Why didn’t you tell Shane anything?”

\-----

Shane isn’t mad. Ryan is just as much of a victim of this as Shane is. So when Shane slams the apartment door shut, it’s not because he’s angry, he’s just upset.

“I didn’t know,” Ryan whispers, frozen at the door as Shane rips his jacket off. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shane says, but he can’t look at Ryan.    
  
_ “Inferus is plotting something. It knows something that you don’t know. You should stay wary for an unpleasant surprise.” _

This is what Caroline warned them about. And yet, Shane hadn’t paid it too much thought. He knew Inferus would try to separate them, but through Ryan’s own hands and own words through their  _ jobs _ , he would never have guessed. He thought Ryan had more control. He thought Ryan would be able to warn him if such a thing was happening. 

He thought he’d be able to tell if Ryan ever lost control.

“Shane,” Ryan calls out. “Please look at me.”

Shane does, and Ryan looks desperate and scared and strong at the same time.

“We can fight this,” Ryan says. “If we start preparing for your solo video now, we can save a couple of days. You can fly out to the next location and meet me the following day.”

It’s a good idea, and for a second Shane feels a little better. But then he realizes it could be Ryan talking right now or it could be Inferus. If they were going to fix this, Shane would have to do it on his own. Giving Ryan information, would be the same as giving Inferus the information.

“Just,” Shane sighs and rubs his eyes, “go brush your teeth and get on the bed.”

Ryan looks hurt for a second, but then he seems to understand. “Okay,” he says in a small voice. 

Shane feels bad immediately after Ryan has gone to the bathroom, but his head is pounding and it has been ever since they left the office. He doesn’t know what to expect of Ryan anymore, doesn’t know if he can trust him like he’s been doing so far. What was Shane going to do? Supervise Ryan while he was working on his computer to make sure he wasn’t subconsciously sabotaging their plans?

Ryan leaves the bathroom and only then does Shane realize he has been standing in the hallway, still wearing his shoes and jacket. He takes them off, and goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, but he finds that his movements are slowing as he finishes the process.

Dread fills his stomach, and makes nausea lick the back of his mouth. What if he couldn’t save Ryan? What if Inferus had all of this planned out, and it didn’t even see Shane as a valid opponent? There was a reason Inferus hadn’t done anything serious against them, hadn’t tried harder to get Shane out of the way. 

“Don’t lose hope,” Billy says behind him. 

Shane sighs and rubs his eyes.

“Shane,” Billy says. “Ryan isn’t the only one who needs to be mentally strong. Inferus will break your defense too, if you let it.”

Shane swallows, his throat dry. But he nods.

“Now, stop hiding in here,” Billy says and Shane sighs.

He finds Ryan on the bed, looking nervous. He isn’t even looking at the phone in his hand. 

“Shane,” Ryan says, but immediately stops. He looks down at his hands, and Shane sits down besides him, putting his arm around Ryan’s shoulders and pulling him in.

Ryan exhales, shaking and leans into Shane’s side. 

That night, they’re mostly quiet as Shane pushes into Ryan’s body. It feels mechanical and wrong, and Ryan writhes like he’s in pain, and he clenches the sheets like his life is depending on it, until Shane puts his hand on top of it, squeezing it tight.

“Breathe,” Shane whispers.

Ryan, whose face is pressed into the mattress, whimpers and shakes. Shane presses his lips onto Ryan’s shoulder, and Ryan gasps, his back arching. Shane waits until Ryan shakily exhales and turns his face, so Shane can see the flushed side of it.

“Shane,” Ryan whispers and it’s intoxicating, the way the rasp of his voice chafes against Shane’s heart.


	12. Chapter 12

They both wake up with what feels like a hangover. Ryan gets up without saying anything and starts cooking them breakfast only wearing his boxers. Shane stays in bed and looks at the ceiling, not for the first time wondering how he ended in this predicament. The shadows of the blinds are wavering on the ceiling, and the sheets rustle against each other.

Two days later, Shane is driving Ryan to the airport - the booked flight tickets are another arrangement Ryan turns out to have been doing behind his back. They’ve had sex three times since then - each time, weirdly intense and hard, Ryan’s body a splash of need and fear on his sheets, his eyes full of longing and pleasure. Shane can still feel the imprint of where Ryan’s muscular legs had been curling around his waist the evening before. He can’t tell if he misses it or if it’s the cause of making him feel like he can’t breathe when Ryan has already gone to sleep at night.

A knot is in his throat, and his hand is curling around the circle of Ryan’s kneecap. Ryan’s hands are shaking around the wheel. 

He misses Ryan already, but not in the ‘You’ll be so far away’-way. 

It almost feels like Ryan is going away permanently. Like he’s sliding out of Shane’s grasp, and slipping into the Styx river, his face fading into the water, his body melting into the mass of so many others. Like he’s just another soul for the scavengers to take, like his body is like all the others. Comparable. Ordinary. Forgettable. 

Ryan’s cold hand comes down to rest on top of Shane’s. Only then does Shane notice that he’s been clenching. They’re waiting at a red light.

“I'll go with you,” Shane says, not for the first time. 

“Shane,” Ryan says, tired.

“Screw work!” Shane says. “I’m not going to lose you over something like this. I’ll call in sick, and - “

“We’ve been preparing as well as we can,” Ryan interrupts. “Look, we dropped by Avni yesterday. She said I was as well-prepared at separation as I could be. This was going to happen sooner or later, and I refuse to let it cost you your job.”

Shane rolls his eyes. “They wouldn’t fire me and you know it,” he says.

“Shane,” Ryan says, and he sounds so tired. Despite getting lots of sleep and food, he looks thinner and more fatigued for each day that passes. The rings underneath his eyes have only become darker. It’s like something is eating him from the inside out. Taking hold of each treasured part of Ryan and consuming it, making the determination in Ryan crumble.

The light turns green, and once again Shane is wondering whether this will be the last time, they’re doing this. Ryan at the driver’s wheel, Shane in the passenger seat, talking as they refuse to look at each other. Shane’s hand on Ryan’s knee is new, and so is the guardian angel that is probably sitting on the backseat. 

But something about this has always been so timeless.

Third eyes, demonic possessions, guardian angels and talismans notwithstanding, Shane is at Ryan’s side. Shane wants to stay there.

They pull into the parking lot of the airport, and Ryan insists on carrying his duffel bag himself. They walk into the airport in silence, Shane’s hands in his pockets as he trails behind Ryan. 

The walk towards security seems too short, and Ryan turns around and meets Shane’s eyes once they get there. Ryan wordlessly lifts one arm and pulls Shane into a hug with it. It’s too brief, and it tastes like everything none of them wants to say. 

Maybe that’s what gives him the courage to call out for Ryan. 

Ryan turns around and looks politely inquiring. 

Shane steps up to him and wraps a hand around Ryan’s elbow. He wonders when that started having less to do with his exorcising qualities and more to do with wanting to be close to Ryan. 

Ryan’s hand comes to rest on Shane’s hipbone and he looks up, his big dark eyes asking for something Shane can only vaguely understand.

Shane leans in, and their mouths come together.  

It’s over before Shane realizes. Ryan cups his hand on Shane’s cheek, their gazes locking together before he slips away.

\---

That evening, TJ, Devon and Shane are driving towards a ten-story hotel that allowed them to film. Shane isn’t nervous; despite how Ryan’s beliefs about the supernatural has indeed been confirmed, he fully expects this experiment to fail miserably. After all, it was just some experiment that was published online, originated from Japan or South-Korea. They didn’t know who the author was, and had no reason to believe whatever they claimed to know, and the game had no root in history.

“Sooo… Shane,” Devon slowly says, as TJ makes a turn. “What’s up with you and Ryan?”

Shane doesn’t look up from his phone. “What are you talking about?” he asks. 

“You’re arranging stuff behind each other’s backs,” TJ answers. “First Ryan, and now you? If there’s an issue, the rest of us should know about it, cause you know it  _ will _ affect the rest of us, and the show as well.”

“It’s not that deep, Teej,” Shane says and his voice sounds flat and dismissive despite his efforts.

“What do you mean it’s not that deep?” Devon asks. “I’ve never seen the two of you like this.”

“Look, it’s a private issue,” Shane unwillingly snaps. “It’s not going to affect the show. Ryan is going through a lot right now, and he… did something stupid, by going behind my back. I’ve rearranged all of this so I can take the flight to where he is as quickly as possible.”

It’s silent for a few minutes, until Devon gingerly asking: “Is he… is he in danger?”

“There’s a free parking spot over there,” Shane replies. 

They film Shane walking into the building a couple of times, and while Shane texts Ryan, Devon and TJ takes some shots of the building, the lobby and the elevator.

Because it’s a solo experiment, Shane is the one who has to tell the camera what the elevator game is, and the sarcasm slips into his voice, the jokes dry and mean. He should be more respectful, considering that people like Avni, Caroline, Father Thomas and himself know that there is more out there, but he is just so tired and he can’t be bothered. A few minutes later, he’s equipped with cameras on his body and is stepping into the elevator.

“You know, I’m sure that OP made it this intricate, so nobody can claim they have done it by accident several times and nothing happened,” he says as he presses the button for the sixth floor. He starts thinking about Ryan and is silent for a while, until he remembers to say his thoughts out loud: “Ryan would probably be shitting himself at this point. His eyes all wide and bulging. I’m so hungry, I could really eat a pickle right now.” Or Chipotle. Eating Chipotle with Ryan on a bench somewhere, enjoying the California sun. They could have chipotle when Shane got the location, even though Maine didn’t offer that much sun.

On the fifth floor something happens even though it’s a fluke. A young woman  _ does _ enter the elevator, but she is nothing like Shane imagined the myth to be. She’s in ripped jeans, a black leather jacket and a black crop top that says “Kiss me”. She’s wearing white Apple earphones, and is texting on her Iphone that has a white furry cover. She doesn’t seem very interested in him, as she presses the button for the first floor. Which is odd, but that’s also where Shane is going so he doesn’t say anything.

Shane goes quiet, and only listens to the sound her nails make when she types on her phone. He hadn’t really taken notice of whether she had long nails, but now he thinks she must have. 

A draft is coming from the back of the elevator, and goosebumps break out on Shane’s arms. He can’t hear the elevator moving anymore. When he looks at the little screen, he realizes that the elevator is ascending. It’s going towards the tenth floor. 

The sound of her nails on her phone has stopped. 

“Where are you going?” she asks, and suddenly the elevator is ice-cold. 

Shane’s throat goes bone-dry. He swallows, but it doesn’t help. The draft starts to feel more like a mist. It creeps over the skin on his bare neck.

He should’ve known.

It’s too late. He already looked at her, despite all the warnings. But at least he can not talk to her.

“Inferus won’t stop,” she continues and it feels and sounds like she’s breathing right into his neck, but he’s too scared to turn around and check. “You need to stop fighting it.”

His hands turn into fists.

“Relax,” she says but her voice sounds all wrong. “I’m just giving you some friendly advice here.”

He closes his eyes.

The doors ding and open and he scrambles out, not wanting to be in the elevator for a second longer with her. But the building lights are turned off, and outside he can only see the black outline of the buildings against the twilight sky. A red cross lights huge and blinding in the distance, bathing the hallway in dim, red light. He holds his breath, and the woman laughs behind him, her voice crackling like fire, cutting into his skin like barbed wire.

The doors slide closed behind him. The first thing he does is check his phone and the camera, but as feared it’s all turned off.

Now, this is where a lot of Shaniacs would’ve expected him to go explore in the name of science. He admits that he is tempted. But still, if being near Ryan has taught him one thing, it’s to not be  _ stupid white people in horror movies. _

Maybe one day he could explore. But not without Ryan. It wouldn’t be the same.

He turns around towards the elevator and pushes the button, when he is sure they have closed behind him.

“Shane?”

Oh no.

He exhales through his nose.

“What are you doing here?” 

He turns around.

Baby Ryan is standing at the end of the corridor, but there’s something about his figure that’s flickering and twitching in the red light. The burns on his face have become thick scar tissue.

“Ryan,” Shane breathes, but it sounds like he’s choking. 

“You can’t be here,” Ryan continues, his eyes wide with panic. “Not in your body. Not while you’re awake.”

The windows start shaking, like there’s a rough wind out there.

“G-go back!” Ryan stutters, before turning around and running. His figure blurs and melts into the shadows a moment later. Once again, Shane’s heart aches for this Ryan, this child who is running around in the darkness, being chased by monsters. All alone and with no one to protect him. Never sleeping, never resting, never getting a break from the chase, the pursuit of survival. He probably always will, if what Billy said was true. 

Shane exhales, not realizing that he has been holding his breath. 

The ceiling creaks.

“Billy?” Shane calls out as he pushes the button again. It’s still darn cold.

There’s no reply, and Shane has to breath slowly as he reminds himself that Billy always will be with him, even if Shane can’t see them.

“Shane!” Ryan shouts, somewhere from the hallway. “Shane, help me!”

“Ryan?” Shane calls out.

The elevator doors open just as Ryan lets out an inhuman scream that rips out Shane’s guts. He chokes for a moment before letting out one single sob, and as he lunges towards the sound of Ryan’s scream that keeps going, scratchy and full of terror, he feels a hand around his bicep.

“Get in the elevator,” Billy harshly commands. 

“No!” Shane is thrashing in Billy arms, as Ryan’s scream fades into agonized sobs. 

“I said get in the elevator, Shane!” Billy shouts, just as a loud thud resounds and Ryan’s voice goes abruptly quiet. Shane is dragged into the elevator, and Billy pushes the button as the tapping sound of Inferus’ tell-tale footsteps starts to move towards them. 

Billy breathes in sharply through his nose as he pushes the button again, still holding Shane’s arm in an iron grip. The elevator doors refuse to close. 

The sound of Inferus walking becomes rapid and louder, but Shane can’t see the demon. He’s blinking, not knowing why his vision is blurry, and once Shane can feel the sound stop right outside the elevator, but still not see Inferus, he turns to look at Billy.

And Billy is looking up.


	13. Chapter 13

It starts with a shimmer.

A misty horizon. The blurry line of pine trees. A white sky. The air is humid and cold, and Shane’s breath leaves small clouds in the air. He’s wearing a red ghost whisperer jacket he got specifically for this trip and his old grey beanie. The glasses would only be in the way, so he’s wearing contacts, tight leather boots. It was raining not too long ago, and Shane’s hands are still cold and damp in his pockets. 

Behind him, he hears Ryan come closer to him, his steps lighter on the brown layer of dead pines. “It’s beautiful, ain’t it?” he asks as they look down at the cliffs, the mist twirling in between the trees like silver waters. 

Shane turns to look at him, and Ryan’s eyes are big and bright, his cheeks red and his grin too big for his face. He’s beautiful like this. Alive and happy, yet driven and ambitious in the most careless, humble way. He had created so much with that single mind of his. A show that was successful, fans that adored him, a cast that admired him. He had created so much for himself, and - and for Shane too. A place he belonged, a role he fit into. A role that actually felt like his, a role that was irreplaceable. Ryan would never call the show anything but ‘theirs’. 

And Shane saw himself doing this for years. Saw himself bantering in front of the camera. Saw himself gently push at Ryan in the sound booth. Saw themselves travel the country thin, then the world. Saw them in different cars, on different highways, through different landscapes. Walking towards different haunted houses, different amusement parks, different streets, different villages, different cities underneath different night skies. Walking on cobblestones, tiles, asphalt, carpets, vinyl. Wearing sneakers, Nikes, boots, polished leather shoes. Always carrying cameras, and they would change too, probably become smaller and stronger as time passed. He saw lights flashing by, he saw boats cut through water, airplanes leave a trail of smoke, car ties leave the scent of warm rubber. He saw their footprints through the forest, through early morning meadows covered in dew. 

He saw their burning need to show the world what they saw, tell them the stories that were forgotten. He saw them holding hands, their palms sweaty underneath a table. He saw two single beds pushed together, and a bedside lamp staying on the lowest setting through the entire night. He saw long, cozy movie nights, the living room hot and sour with their scent, their legs tangled together. He saw Ryan’s swollen lips become red with hunger, with need. He saw their bare shoulders in the morning sun. Saw two empty cups of coffee in the sink, saw a bigger apartment, two cars in the parking lot, a golden band on his ring finger. 

He saw Ryan’s hands shake, saw red light reflecting in empty glassy eyes, heard his wet, desperate gasping. Heard his heartbeat slow. Felt his body grow cold.

The memories or visions of a future, their future, together and happy and alive break like Christmas balls breaking into thousands of shards. He can’t breath as their future falls away and he can’t catch them without cutting his hands.

He looks at Ryan.

His grin has disappeared. His mouth is open, his eyes huge and blank. Red is soaking his collar. The richest of reds seep out of his mouth and down his neck, an annual river making way through the desert. Never leaving it the same again.

“No,” Shane groans as the world breaks around him and he reaches out to grab Ryan just as he falls. The world slips, the forest turns into darkness. “No, no, Ryan.”

Ryan’s arms come up and clench Shane tight. He feels so cold and Shane shimmers.

“Shane,” Ryan whispers. “Listen to me.”

Shane closes his eyes, savoring the scent of him.

“You need to wake up, Shane,” Ryan says. “You need to run.”

Shane refuses to.

“Shane,” Ryan whispers, his voice broken and scared. “Please.”

Shane opens his eyes, and almost throws up in his mouth with terror. 

All he can see is Inferus’ eyes, big and white in their jetblack face, with blue irises and black pupils. They look so human. 

Shane screams and abruptly gets tackled away by Billy as the angel stabs his sword into the ceiling. Inferus quickly crawls out of the elevator, its limbs long and twisted on the neon lights on the ceiling. 

Shane touches his head, feeling woozy as Billy hurries to push one of the buttons in the elevator.

“Ow,” Shane whines. “I think I hit my head. Why did you push me so hard?”

Billy ignores him, and helps him up on his feet. “You should be really fucking grateful that you have a guardian angel, you stupid prick.”

“Oh my god,” Shane says, staring at him. “Did you just curse?”

“Shut up,” Billy says. “Wow, your head is becoming even bigger than it already is.”

“I just told you I hit it really hard!” Shane says.

“Stop it, I was saving your life; again, if I might remind you.”

“You may not, can’t you tell I’m feeling very sorry for myself right now,” Shane whines as the doors open. Beyond them is just darkness and a cold draft. Billy pushes the button again.

“You know, you swear you make it rain, but I swear to my Father I haven’t seen one drop,” Billy complains.

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Shane asks.

Billy blinks at Shane. “You’re old, Shane. And you need to sleep.”

“Oh no,” Shane protests. “I need to catch a flight. Ryan is waiting for me in Maine.”

Billy doesn’t say anything, and Shane recalls the image of the life seeping out of Ryan in vivid detail.

“I’m sorry, Shane,” Billy finally says.

“Stop,” Shane warns. 

“Ryan is - “

“Stop, Ryan is fine.” There’s a light tremor in Shane’s voice.

“We couldn’t have done anything,” Billy says anyways as he pushes yet another button.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Shane insists.

“Shane...“

Shane turns his face away, but thankfully Billy remembers the order in which to back to the human world. Shane’s head hurts and his scalp is wet where he hit his head. He closes his eyes, and focuses on breathing, until the doors open and this time it’s a wave of familiar California heat that comes in. 

He opens his eyes, and he hears Devon shriek before feeling her body ram into his. He groans as a wave of dizziness hits him, and he opens his eyes to see TJ staring at him with wide eyes and two police officers standing besides him.

“Good to see you, buddy,” Tj smiles, his eyes a little wet.

“You too?” Shane asks, looking at the police officers. “What’s going on?”

“Mr. Madej, are you alright?” one of the police officers asks. This one looks like a Mark. Marks always pretend to be feminists but share their nudes with their bros at the gym. 

“I almost threw up in my mouth there,” Shane says. “Please, call me Shane.”

“Oh my god, you’re bleeding,” Devon realizes jumping back.

“Shane, please step out of the elevator,” Mark politely asks. Maybe too politely. Maybe he’s a Mark with a C. His mom thought he was real special when he was born.

Shane does as he’s being told and realizes he is hungry, which he tells them. Devon produces a water bottle from her bag, and Shane drinks it in one go. After that, he blinks at them in quiet unsettlement. 

“So…” he starts. “Why are you here?”

“What’s the last thing you remember, Shane?” Marc asks, not unkindly. 

“Uh we’re doing a dumb video, and I’m catching a flight in two hours, so if you could get to the point?”

“Shane,” Devon says very sadly.

“Please,” Shane says and he sounds like he’s choking. “Please don’t do this.”

“You’ve been gone for two days, man,” TJ says.

“What did I just say?” Shane exclaims. “I don’t need this right now, okay. I don’t need more of this bullshit, I need to get to Ryan, he’s  _ hurt _ \- “

“Hold up,” Marc says. “Calm down, buddy. Start explaining why you’re hurt? Did someone attack you?”

Shane scoffs. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Marc smiles crookedly and the other officer sighs and says: “He’s a Boogara, and we’ve been searching this hotel for two days non-stop looking for you. Trust me when I say that he’ll eat up whatever you give him at this point.”

“Oh, Shane,” Devon says.

\----

Two hours later, Shane somehow got out of being brought to the police station by making up an embarrassingly bad story. Disappearing for two days? A prank. His head injury? He fell. Getting out of the hotel without the cameras catching him? Blind angles.

The good thing about having been a sceptic for so long, is that you’ll be able to find any bad excuse to deny what’s right in front of you. Marc and his colleague don’t believe him for one minute, but there’s only so much they can do to hold him back.  

TJ races down the highway, as Devon purchases them plane tickets. Shane is given a wet wipe to dry the blood on his forehead away, and they buy a sandwich once they get past the first security checkpoint. Devon tries again to speak to Shane, her eyes as withering as fall, bearing the hard truth of winter. Shane just puts on his headphones and she sighs. TJ calls Daysha who is also in Maine for reasons that Shane refuses to think about. At some point he talks to Ryan’s mom. His voice becomes rough.

\----

Shane sleeps through the entire flight, and when he wakes up as they land, he feels slightly renewed. Devon forces them to drop by a hotdog stand, but nobody jokes about what happened last time that happened. Like the memory is holy or hurtful or both. Shane thinks it’s because it was always touched by hands that might not grace it again, and now it feels wrong.

They rent a car, and Shane finally gets to charge his phone. He decides to stay off social media after he scrolls down Instagram and sees that their fanpage made a post about sending Ryan their prayers. The picture of Ryan was taken by one of the trainees Ryan hung out with sometimes; it’s taken at a contemporary gallery downtown. The background is blurred out, Ryan sharp in focus. He’s laughing, all pearly teeth and crinkled eyes. One eyebrow is slightly lifted as he looks at someone to the side. The laughter doesn’t reach his eyes, not really, but the way his face is wrinkled with humor like silk paper usually fools people into thinking he’s finding whatever you said funny. Or well, anyone who knew him knows that his response to most things that excite him is laughter, bad or good.

Shane turns off the screen, and closes his eyes.

They pull into a hospital’s parking lot, as Shane somehow anticipated, and as they walk in there, Devon says: “It was a stroke. He has been in a coma since, but he occasionally still gets seizures.”

Shane remembers Ryan’s body on the floor of the dark hotel, the red light dim on his body. He’s heaving as Inferus drinks his water, inhales his cells.

Shane is hit by the strongest deja vu when he meets Jake in the hallway. He looks like a ghost, hollow and pale, wandering the hallways. Lost. Like the last time Ryan was in the hospital, but worse. The trip to the hospital room passes in a haze, and they’re there too soon.

“I’m going to ask mom and dad whether it’s okay for you to come in,” Jake says, and he leaves them.

The lights start to flicker. The smell of sulphur fills Shane’s nostrils. Devon and TJ stands closer to Shane.

“Is it here?” TJ whispers.

Shane nods, not caring for how or why TJ knows. He clears his throat. “Just stay close to me.”

He closes his eyes. A ringing sound starts in his ears.

“Stay focused,” Billy advises.

There’s an abrupt shout inside, and Shane barges in. The lights are flickering, the machines beeping as Ryan convulses on the bed. Black snakes swirl underneath his skin, bulging and slithering, worms making the thin skin on his cheek bones boil with motion. Something happened at the hotel, something caught Ryan and changed him, but as Shane stares he realizes that something changed him there as well.

He closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing. He hits a wall of noise and this time he’s prepared for the pressure that tries to push him away, the force that tries to make him believe that it is stronger than he is. 

“Defeat is not an option,” Billy says. 

When he was ten, he fell into a lake and his mother jumped in to save him. That, at least, is what he told himself for many years. Even now, it doesn’t matter what the truth was, does it? Whether it was his mother who saved him or Billy. The most important thing was the relief, the first breath of life as he broke through the surface and breathed. He hasn’t been able to find that sweet release again, because he thought it was something he always had. But the relief, the freedom, the peace, is not something he can find in himself. It is something that he creates with another human person, something sacred that is so much holier than Shane ever really fathomed. But now he can feel it and it all starts with a shimmer.

The smell of pine trees.

That is all that means anything.

“I’m not afraid of you, Inferus,” he says and the door slams shut, the windows rattle. He looks at Ryan. Defiantly he steps forward. The smell of sulphur gets stronger, and Shane puts his hand on Ryan’s forehead, and as if something pressed the pause button, the lights stop flickering and the worms stop creeping underneath Ryan’s skin.

“Call him,” Billy instructs.

“Ryan,” Shane whispers, and yet again, he closes his eyes. He’s standing in the elevator, the doors opening and shutting, going  _ ding ding ding _ . He’s in Avni and Caroline’s garden, looking at the trail of blood on the green grass. He’s ten years old drowning in the lake. Maybe what Billy said is true. Maybe the contact with the supernatural world really did leave memories behind, versions of yourself, deemed to always stay where they were made, bound to repeat themselves. He never thought it was true and once he did, he thought he was excluded of the notion somehow. But now he sees all the versions of himself, and he finds the one at the hotel that he needs.

Shane opens his eyes.

Inferus’ cold blue eyes stare back at him, resting where Ryan’s warm brown eyes should’ve been.

“Be afraid of me,” Shane says. “You have only just started to hear my thunder.”

And the breath of life sweeps through the room like a massive wave, and the wall of noise and pressure has no defence against it. Inferus’ eyes, full of rage, roll back and Ryan’s body stops arching and falls loosely back onto the mattress. The beeping fades and the lights stop flickering. 

“Holy crap,” TJ whispers behind him. 

Ryan sighs, and Shane exhales and kneels at his bed, finding Ryan’s hand. Shane feels immediately drained, like he could sleep for a hundred years. 

Ryan blinks his eyes open, his eyes warm and brown again. He turns his head and looks at Shane, sighs faintly. His eyes are far away. “Beautiful, ain’t it?”

Shane smiles. “Yeah. But you need to come home, buddy.”

Ryan smiles crookedly back. “I can do that.”


	14. Chapter 14

Shane wakes up in the pine forest again. His nose is cold and runny, and it has gotten darker, but it’s not quite night yet. He blinks his eyes open, and looks around. Billy is sitting on a branch up in a tree, and Shane is lying on a hill curving downwards. Withered pine needles are stuck on his cheek as he sits up and rubs his face.

“There’s a river downhill,” Billy informs. “The two of you should go down there, and ask to be baptized. But first you have to find Ryan.”

“What about Inferus?” Shane asks, straightening up. 

“He’s not gonna be there,” Billy says and he smiles in a way that reminds Shane of a predator. He looks up at the sky, a weird light in his golden eyes. “You made sure of that.” He nods encouragingly at Shane, before jumping down from the tree, his wings unfolding to soften his fall. He starts to walk and Shane runs to catch up with him, sniffling as he realizes his nose is running from the cold. The forest isn’t silent, but Shane can’t quite tell what noises it’s making. It’s certainly not the sound of animals rummaging around. If Shane has to try to describe it, it sounds like a hum too low for Shane to immediately pick up, the leaves and trees whispering when they move, the wind wailing softly as it makes way through the forest. 

“Which plane are we in right now?” Shane asks as they start descending down the hill. A lot of small trees and bushes are in the way, and Billy’s wings spread to lead the way through them. He could’ve flown, but he sticks with Shane and for that Shane is grateful. He doesn’t want to wander the forest alone. He watched the Blair Witch Project, and now that the supernatural has become a very real thing in his life, he deeply regrets so. 

“I don’t know,” Billy hesitantly answers, his brows lifted. “But it’s one much closer to God than any other you’ve ever been on. That doesn’t mean you can fully trust though.”

“Why?” Shane asks, just as Billy grabs his arm. Shane looks inquiringly at Billy before looking down the hill, that has suddenly become the edge of a steep cliff, that they’re standing at. There is hardly any vegetation, and no easy way to get down it. 

“Just because it isn’t real, doesn’t mean the consequences aren’t,” Billy sighs. Now that there are no trees to block the view, Shane sees that the sky is completely dark, but foreign veins of golden light break through the sky, the stars sparkling like diamonds around them. When Shane looks back at Billy, the angel has a soft little smile on his face. The hand that is holding Shane’s wrist feels oddly … warm, and the more Shane looks at Billy, the more he realizes that Billy’s jet black skin is glowing with an soft orange light. It’s actually quite strong, and Shane doesn’t understand how he has missed it before now. His golden eyes are reflecting the light of the veins like crystal balls, and his wings vibrate with excited energy. He looks like somebody is singing to him or playing the warmest melody. Wondering and amazed. 

As Shane observes him, it hits him how similar and how different Billy and Inferus look. They both have the huge bold eyes, and the darkest of skins. Inferus is a fallen angel, and once they must have been kin. Once, Inferus’ skin must have come alight like Billy’s is now. Shane wonders what made Inferus willing to give that up. He wonders what’s so appealing about crawling on ceilings and walls in a world without light. 

“What’s that?” Shane asks, even though he thinks he already knows the answer.

“That’s our Father,” Billy says, his voice a little husky. “That’s His love.”

Despite coming from a Jewish background, Shane never viewed himself as particularly religious. It wasn’t that he wanted to reject the idea completely. It’s just that life was full of so many other things and questions, that he could actually find answers to.

Billy turns to Shane and he puts his hands on Shane’s shoulder. Shane meets his eyes as the black wings fold over Shane’s shoulders and for a second everything is dark. Then Billy is tipping backwards and Shane yelps when they fall. 

But it doesn’t feel like a fall, because Shane’s stomach doesn't drop. It feels like they’re floating, and Shane realizes his eyes are closed. He opens them, and to his surprise he doesn’t see the darkness of the inside of Billy’s wings. The layer of feathers are raven black, yes, but a similar pattern to the ones on the sky light up the cocoon of Billy’s wings. The veins are golden and warm and pulsing with light and power. Shane doesn’t feel so alone anymore.

And then they land softly, and when Billy removes his wings they’re in a clearing. Shane looks up at the starry sky, and around. 

“How are we going to find him?” Shane asks. “Ryan, I mean. He’s probably hiding.”

Billy tilts his head, frowning softly. “We’re not looking for the boy that got away, Shane. We’re looking for the man who was captured.”

“What - “ Shane interrupts himself, a chill running down his spine. The world around them wavers. “He.”

“Yes,” Billy confirms. “You last saw him in the bathtub. You could barely look at him. You need to take him, and carry him to the river. You need to baptize him.”

“Wait a minute, that is  _ not _ what you said five minutes ago,” Shane breaks out. Billy walks around him. “Are you aware of how much Ryan weighs?” he asks, and as he turns to follow Billy with his eyes, the world swirls in blurry lines and becomes a spin of stars. 

“He’s heavier now than ever,” Billy whispers and he sounds close even though Shane can no longer see him. “Focus on carrying him, and I will focus on Inferus. Good luck, Shane.”

The world stops spinning, but Shane isn’t dizzy on his feet. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks nervously around. How the Hell (whoops) would he find Ryan? There’s no bathtub in a freaking forest. Or maybe there is. Shane doesn’t even know anymore.

He sighs and looks up at the sky. There’s a rainbow halo around the veins. 

He rubs his eyes and thanks the gods that it’s at least not raining anymore, and that he doesn’t feel particularly cold. Actually the temperature feels barely noticeable. 

“Ryan?” Shane calls out. It never hurt to try, and nobody said that distance was a factor in this world. But maybe it was. Shane doesn’t know how much energy he would spend trying to figure out a world that makes no sense if it hadn’t been for Ryan. Shane calls out for him again, but when he starts to move, he walks downhill. 

“Shane?” he hears a voice hesitantly call out somewhere.

Shane immediately recognizes it and when he turns around, baby Ryan is standing there. The burn has become a scar that is permanently disfiguring his face, but his eyes are bright and eager in a way Shane hasn’t ever seen them before.

“The demon is gone!” Ryan eagerly tells him.

“I know, Ryan,” Shane says.

“We could go everywhere we wanted,” Ryan adds gleefully.

“I know, Ryan. But we have to do something very important first,” Shane tells him.

“What?” Ryan asks, reaching out to hold Shane’s hand and Shane clasps it in his.

“We have to find the Ryan who’s in the tub,” Shane says, very very gently. “The one that’s in Hell.”

Ryan abruptly steps back, his eyes wide and nostrils flaring. “Why?” he asks, his voice shrill.

“We have to bring him to the river,” Shane explains. “In the river, he will be purified and Inferus will be gone forever. Do you know where that Ryan is?”

Ryan pouts.

“You don’t have to come to the river if you don’t want to, but it would make me very happy if you did,” Shane remembers to offer. 

Ryan looks very dubious, but slowly he nods and starts to walk up the hill again. Shane silently follows him as Ryan knowingly makes way through the landscape. 

“How do you always know where you are?” Shane asks, for the lack of anything better to talk about. “You’ve never been here before. Or at the hotel or at Avni and Caroline’s house.”

Baby Ryan shrugs. “It all looks the same to me,” he says. “Here.”

He abruptly stops and points at a fox lair which looks exactly like the one from  _ Antichrist _ . He looks at Baby Ryan and shakes his head. “No way.”

“That’s where he is,” Baby Ryan tells him. “But don’t worry, he hasn’t... He’s just sleeping right now. See you at the river!”

And then Baby Ryan runs away, which is understandable really, but that leaves Shane all alone again. He takes a deep breath, looking at the dark fox lair. It does not look inviting and the mere sight of it makes Shane want to piss his pants.

The forest hums and Shane looks up.

The veins on the sky seem closer, and he looks at the sparkling stars and the golden light for a moment. He feels weirdly unaffected by the light, but somehow he’s reminded that he’s not alone. With a deep breath, he ventures towards the fox lair. The closer he gets, the darker the hole seems and he needs to slide down with his feet first. He feels the irrational fear of something biting at his feet, or there being no bottom, but his feet touch the ground softly.

The smell hits him immediately. The scent of sulphur is strong, but not in that rotten way as it was in the hospital room. Shane can still see the ground from where he’s standing, and could probably pull himself out of the hole if he really tried to. He takes a deep breath, and looks at the golden light before turning around.

Only to jump back with a shout, the top of his head hitting a particularly thick root.

Ryan is standing right there. His eyes are wide and glassy, but empty. It has the shade of coffee brown that Shane knows though, so the immediate sense of alarm quickly fades.

“Ryan,” Shane says.

“Shane,” Ryan replies.

Shane blinks at Ryan, not knowing what to feel for a second, and then deciding to shake it off. He clears his throat. “So how are you feeling?” he asks.

Ryan frowns. “Well, I think,” he replies. “I feel like I just woke up from a nightmare. Shaken, but relieved?”

“Makes sense,” Shane says. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No idea.”

“I see.” Shane points at the hole. “We need to exit from there, and then we need to find a river. Once we get there and you get your toes wet, Inferus isn’t going to put a finger on you.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Now, let me I’ll get you a jump.”

**Author's Note:**

> Remember to leave a comment and let me know what u think ^^


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